Thinning strawberry plants is an essential gardening task that every strawberry grower should learn. Properly thinning your strawberry patch improves plant health, boosts fruit production, and extends the lifespan of your plants. In this comprehensive guide, I’ll explain when and how to thin strawberry plants using simple, step-by-step instructions.
Why Thinning is Important
Thinning is the process of selectively removing some strawberry plants to reduce crowding and encourage new growth. Here are the main reasons thinning is so beneficial for strawberry patches:
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Increases Fruit Yield – Thinning improves air circulation and light exposure. With more space and resources, the remaining plants can devote more energy to producing sweet, juicy berries.
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Promotes Plant Health – Dense patches are prone to diseases like leaf scorch, botrytis, and verticillium wilt Thinning improves airflow and reduces moisture, limiting the spread of fungal and bacterial diseases
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Plants live longer—strawberry plants produce their most fruit in their second and third years. Thinning patches makes room for new daughter plants to replace old, less productive plants, which brings new life to the patches.
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Saves Money – Thinning lets you propagate new plants for free rather than purchasing them. It also takes less effort than fully replacing plants each year.
When to Thin Strawberry Plants
For June-bearing and everbearing varieties, the optimal thinning window is late summer to early fall after the plants become dormant. This gives them time to recover before winter but is late enough to avoid disrupting fruit production.
Specifically, wait 4-6 weeks after the final harvest to thin. You can thin in the spring, but it’s best to wait until after the plants have fruited. In places that can handle winter, try to thin your strawberries once before the first frost.
Step-by-Step Thinning Guide
Follow these simple steps for thinning strawberry beds and revitalizing your patch:
1. Remove Weeds
Eliminate weeds from in and around your strawberry beds. Remove roots completely to prevent regrowth.
2. Mow Leave Tops
Use a lawnmower or trimmer to cut back the leaves to 2-3 inches above the crowns. This removes old growth to encourage new leaves and runners.
3. Thin Out Rows
For planted rows, remove runners and plants between rows using a hoe or tiller. Leave 12-18 inches between each row.
4. Remove Old Crowns
Dig out overcrowded and discolored large crowns, leaving younger crowns spaced 12-18 inches apart.
5. Fertilize
Apply a balanced fertilizer like 10-10-10 at the recommended rate after thinning.
6. Mulch Beds
Put a layer of straw or leaves about two to three inches thick around plants to keep water in and keep weeds from growing.
Ongoing Strawberry Bed Maintenance
While the major thinning event happens just once per year, regular pruning and care is needed to maintain optimal strawberry health:
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Remove runners between rows regularly to prevent overcrowding.
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Clip off diseased or pest-damaged leaves as needed.
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Apply monthly foliar feeds and fish emulsion fertilizer during growth.
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Ensure plants receive 1-2 inches of water per week from rain or irrigation.
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Protect crowns with mulch in cold winter regions.
Common Strawberry Plant Spacing Guidelines
Proper spacing is critical when initially planting your strawberry patch and when thinning overcrowded beds:
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Row Spacing: 2-4 feet between rows
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In-Row Spacing: 12-18 inches between plants
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Raised Beds: 10-12 inches between plants
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Container Grown: 1 plant per 8-12 inch pot
When Is the Best Time to Thin Strawberries?
Thin strawberry plants in late summer or early fall for productivity.
Late summer or early fall is the best time to thin both June-bearing and everbearing strawberry plants. At this point, the plants are done producing fruits, and their vegetative growth has slowed for the season. Thinning the plants in the fall allows you to enjoy a healthy and productive bed the following spring.
While you should complete the major pruning event after the plants finish producing fruits, you can also complete light pruning throughout the summer if you notice plants are becoming overcrowded.
Should I Thin Out My Strawberry Bed?
The short answer is yes! While your strawberry plants will grow and produce fruit if you forgo thinning, spending a few hours renovating your beds each year provides the following benefits.
Maximize strawberry productivity by thinning older plants for new growth.
Most strawberry plants are the most productive in their second and third year of growth. While they may continue to send out a few berries in years four and five, you’ll notice your harvest basket becoming less and less full.
But you don’t have to add new plants every couple of years to keep your strawberry patch producing juicy, sweet berries!
Thinning involves removing old plants and leaving room for new plants to expand. With more room to grow, daughter plants mature and begin producing fruit. The plants will stop making fruit at some point, but new daughter plants will be ready to take over as fruit producers.
Thinning also ensures that each plant can access the water, light, and nutrients it needs to produce fruit. While it’s easy to think more plants are better, a handful of healthy plants are far more productive than a boatload of mediocre plants.
Thin to reduce strawberry diseases by improving airflow and limiting moisture.
Thinning also helps limit the development and spread of common strawberry diseases. When strawberry plants are allowed to their own devices, they will quickly grow into a dense mat.
These tightly packed plants mean limited airflow and increased moisture under the plants’ canopy, both of which increase the likelihood of fungal diseases like leaf scorch and gray mold.
Thinning out extra plants improves airflow and helps keep these diseases at bay.
Thinning maintains naturally produced plants, saving money and effort.
Although strawberries are perennial plants, some people choose to replant them each year. That’s because individual plants are the most productive in their second year of growth. Even though this method guarantees a good harvest every year, you have to buy and plant new strawberries every year.
Thinning your strawberry bed allows you to keep the new plants the bed naturally produces and avoid purchasing new plants. You will have to spend some time pruning, but not any more time than you would removing old strawberry plants and replanting new ones. Plus, you don’t have to spend money on new plants.
How to Thin and Maintain Your Strawberry Patch! Don’t throw those runners away!
FAQ
Should you thin out your strawberry plants?
Renovating, renewing, and maintaining a strawberry bed is essential for the long-term health and productivity of strawberry plants. After the harvest in early summer, you should fix up your strawberry patch by cutting back on old strawberry runners and adding organic matter to the top of the soil.
Can strawberry plants be too thick?
If the runners are making the bed too thick, it’s time to thin them out so the main plants can get more food. Just be careful not to pull too many out, or your patch is going to be weak. Once spring arrives and it warms up, pull that mulch aside, and your strawberries should be just great.
When to thin and transplant strawberry plants?
Most of the time, day-neutral strawberries are grown as annuals, which means they are planted in the spring, picked in the summer, and taken away in the fall. June-bearing varieties for perennial plantings can be transplanted in the spring or fall, and they won’t typically fruit until their second year.
Do strawberry plants like to be crowded?
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