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Living Mulch You Can Eat: Strawberries as Ground Cover
Permaculture Approach to Using Strawberries as Ground Cover
In permaculture, every element of the garden has multiple functions, creating a system that is self-sustaining, resilient, and efficient. Using strawberries as ground cover is a fantastic way to incorporate these principles, offering a variety of benefits to both plants and gardeners. We use both wild and standard strawberries in our ground cover areas in the food forest. You can see this on our You Tube Video below
You Tube Video: Why We Use Strawberries As Ground Cover In Our Food Forest
Why Use Strawberries as Ground Cover?
Multifunctionality: Strawberries serve dual purposes in the garden: they provide delicious fruit and act as an effective ground cover. By planting strawberries as a living mulch, you can suppress weeds, retain soil moisture, and reduce soil erosion, all while enjoying a tasty harvest.
Soil Health: The shallow root system of strawberries helps prevent soil compaction and promotes healthy microbial activity. Their roots also help bind the soil, reducing erosion and improving soil structure over time.
Biodiversity: Strawberries attract beneficial insects, including pollinators like bees, which are crucial for a healthy garden ecosystem. They also provide habitat and food for other beneficial organisms, enhancing biodiversity.
Benefits of Using Strawberries as Ground Cover
Weed Suppression: Strawberry plants spread through runners, creating a dense mat that inhibits weed growth. This reduces the need for manual weeding and minimises competition for nutrients and water.
Soil Moisture Retention: The foliage of strawberry plants shades the soil, reducing evaporation and helping to retain moisture. This is particularly beneficial during dry spells, ensuring that your garden remains productive.
Erosion Control: The root system of strawberries helps anchor the soil, preventing erosion. This is especially useful on slopes or in areas with loose soil, where erosion can be a significant issue.
Increased Yield: Using strawberries as ground cover can enhance overall garden productivity. By maximising the use of space and minimising weed competition, you can achieve higher yields of strawberries and other crops.
Planting Strawberries as Ground Cover
Site Selection: Choose a sunny location for planting strawberries. They thrive in full sun but can tolerate partial shade. Ensure the soil is well-drained and fertile.
Preparation: Prepare the soil by incorporating organic matter we use leaf mould (shredded leaves in place what will eventually turn to leaf mould as it decomposes). This improves soil fertility and structure, providing a good foundation for the strawberry plants.
Planting Technique: Space strawberry plants about 12 inches apart to allow for spreading. If planting in rows, maintain a distance of about 18 inches between rows. This spacing will enable the runners to establish and cover the ground effectively.
Caring for Strawberry Ground Cover
Watering: Strawberries require consistent moisture, especially during flowering and fruiting. Water the plants regularly, keeping the soil evenly moist but not waterlogged. In Scotland, you don’t need to worry about that so much as there seems to always be rain 🙂
Mulching: Apply a thin layer of organic mulch around the strawberry plants. This helps retain soil moisture, suppresses weeds, and keeps the fruit clean. Straw, pine needles, or wood chips are excellent mulching materials. Again, we just use what we have which is leaves that we shred with the lawn mower so they break down easier and faster.
Harvesting and Maintaining Ground Cover
Harvesting: Pick strawberries when they are fully red and ripe. Regular harvesting encourages more fruit production and prevents pests from being attracted to overripe fruit.
Maintaining Ground Cover: After the fruiting season, trim back the runners if they become too invasive. This helps prevents the strawberries from overtaking other garden areas.
Incorporating strawberries as ground cover in a garden offers numerous benefits, from improving soil health and suppressing weeds to providing a harvest. By following permaculture principles and using strawberries in this multifunctional role, you can create a more sustainable, productive, and resilient garden ecosystem.
Autumn to Summer. Being mulched with leaves in winter to fully grown in Summer
Video Reel: From Grass To Strawberries Spring 2024
Video Reel: From Grass To Strawberries Autumn 2023
Take a look at other ways you can cover your bare soil using ground covers, cover crops and mulches in these blogs:
Naturally Stopping Weeds in the Garden: Using Cover Crops and Living Ground Covers
Mulch in Gardening: What It Is, Why It’s Used and How to Choose the Right Type
Happy Gardening!
Katrina & Clayton and family live in East Ayrshire and share their daily life in the garden on instagram. They practice permaculture principles in the garden, reducing & repurposing waste whenever they can. Katrina shows how home educating in nature has helped Clayton thrive.
Clayton Completed The 2 Grow and Learn Courses with the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society. He is Autistic, Non Verbal & has been Home Educated since 2018. Katrina & Peter hold their PDC & PDC PRO Permaculture Design Course from Oregon State University.
They featured on BBC Beechgrove Gardens Ep23 2022 and returned in 2023 for an update,Katrina & Clayton are also columnists for ScotlandGrows Magazine, Guest Blog for Caledonian Horticulture as well as working with Gardeners’ World Magazine and many other brands.
They are also Author of the new Children’s Book Series: Clayton’s Garden Journey: Stories of Autism and Gardening. Topics on Growing, Harvesting, Sowing & Composting and 108 Page Weather and Seasons Weekly Gardening Record Book available on Amazon and Kindle.
Listen in on their Guest Podcasts to learn more about them.
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Our Children’s Book Series
Author of the new children’s book series: Clayton’s Garden Journey: Stories of Autism and Gardening and Sowing, Growing, Weather and Seasons Weekly Gardening Record Book available on Amazon and Kindle
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