Strawberry Growing Guide

🌱 GrowBox

Strawberry Growing Guide

Easy steps for growing a strawberry patch — and why winter is the best time to start.

Fresh strawberries, one halved, on a pink background
Welcome

You've got strawberries 🍓

Follow this guide and, come the summer holidays, you'll be picking them warm off the plant.

Let's get started.

A child holding freshly picked strawberries
Your kit

What's in your box

  • 🍓
    Six bare-rooted strawberry crowns — a mix of Camarosa and Ventana where we could get both
  • 🪴
    Soil Food compost (1L) — all-natural, manure-based, to settle the crowns in
  • ✨
    Strawberry Magic fertiliser (1L) — one spring feed (details below)
  • 🛏️
    Strawberry mulch — a comfy bed for the roots
  • 🕸️
    1m of bird netting — the birds will try their luck
  • 📌
    Stakes — to hold the net up (and your hopes)
Everything inside the GrowBox Strawberry box
Soil Food compostSoil Food
Strawberry Magic fertiliserStrawberry Magic
Soil MulchSoil Mulch
Planting

Why the mix — and why bare-rooted

We give you two varieties so the fruiting season stretches out. Ventana comes on first — it gets you picking earliest, from late October into November. Then Camarosa is the main event: bigger berries, heavier crops, carrying the bowl right through from mid-November into February. Between them, you get a long run of picking rather than one big glut and done.

Bare-rooted crowns are how the pros plant strawberries. Cheaper, tougher, easier to ship, and — the important bit — they establish faster than a potted plant, because there's no pot to grow out of first. Cold weather is what they want right now: it's when they set roots underground. In spring they'll break dormancy, throw up leaves, and by early summer they'll be flowering.

When your box arrives

The crowns might look like dead twigs with straggly roots. Don't panic — that's exactly what a healthy, dormant strawberry crown looks like. If you're getting into the garden right away, soak the roots in water for 30 minutes while you prepare your soil.

Planting — the most important bit

Get the crown right

This is the step that decides your whole season. Everything after it is easy.

A young strawberry crown coming through the mulch
The one thing you can't get wrong: the crown — that little knuckle where the leaves meet the roots — has to sit exactly at soil level. Too deep and it rots. Too shallow and it dries out. Get this right and everything else is easy.
Sunny spot. Strawberries need at least 6 hours of direct sun — a north-facing spot is ideal. Raised beds or straight in the ground both work. Pots are fine too (roughly one crown per 25cm pot).
Make a mound. Strawberries like it loose, rich, and well-drained. If your soil is heavy or damp, mound it up 10–15cm before planting — roots hate sitting in cold water. Mix a good handful of the Soil Food compost into each planting hole.
Spacing. 25–30cm apart, in rows 40–50cm apart. Tighter than that and airflow suffers, which means grey mould later.

Quick guide

1
Pick a sunny spot.
2
Make a small hole (a mound if your soil is soggy or heavy).
3
Hold the crown at soil level.
4
Spread the roots down and backfill.
5
Tuck the mulch around it and water in well.
Care & harvest

Watering & feeding

Watering through winter and early spring

Water deeply once or twice a week — less in winter, more as the weather warms. The soil should be moist but never waterlogged. Stick your finger in: if the top 2cm is dry, it's time to water.

Feeding and mulching

Feed once, in spring. When you see small, tight, still-closed green buds, apply the Strawberry Magic. It's organic, so it takes two to three weeks to become available to the plant — feed at green bud and it's working right as the flowers open. That's the only feed it needs.
Mulch. It keeps the roots' temperature stable, holds moisture, keeps weeds out, and keeps the ripening berries off the dirt — which means clean fruit, not mouldy fruit. If your soil is soggy, wait until the plants are established, then mulch around them.
Strawberry Magic fertiliser — the single spring feed
Protect & multiply

Netting & runners

Netting

Use the stakes to make a frame over your plants, then drape the bird netting on top and secure the edges with pegs or rocks. Get it on as soon as the fruit starts to colour — birds will find them before you do if you leave it even a day too late.

Runners — the free plants

After fruiting, your plants send out runners — long stems with baby plants on the end. Pin these into pots of soil to grow new plants, or snip them off if you'd rather the mother plant put its energy back into next year's fruit. Either way, don't let them tangle through your patch unchecked.

What happens when

A rough timeline

  • Winter: plants look dormant — that's normal.
  • Early spring: new leaves emerge from the crown.
  • Mid-spring: flowers appear — your first fruit is weeks away.
  • Late spring to summer: harvest time!

If in doubt, reach out

If something looks off, or you just want to check you're on the right track, drop me a line — I'm happy to help.

✉️ bevan@growbox.co.nz  ·  📷 @getgrowbox

Get out there — and grow!
Bevan, GrowBox

🌱 The free GrowBox app lands this spring — point your phone at your patch and it tells you what to plant and when. Join the waitlist.