
Do you love strawberries? We sure do. Berry season is a favorite time of year around here. We love them all- strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. There’s nothing like fresh, delicious, sun-ripened, sweet berries!
Over the years we have grown strawberries in the garden, bought them from local farms, and gone strawberry picking. In the wintertime, when fresh berries were not available locally, on occasion we bought bags of frozen strawberries from the grocery store. More times than not I was disappointed when I saw inside the bag- many of the berries were more white than red, hardly ripe at all.
I know I’m a bit spoiled with the quality of berries we are used to, but strawberries taste best when they are red and ripe, and I don’t want to waste money on berries that don’t taste very good. You know what I mean? Also, the cost of buying strawberries adds up.
Both of those things inspired our family to talk about growing more strawberries ourselves. We wanted to be able to have fresh berries to enjoy, and hopefully grow enough at some point to have extra to freeze as well.

There were issues we ran into when growing strawberries over the years though.
The first issue was insects and slugs. I can’t count the number of times we got excited when we discovered a ripe strawberry, only to go to pick it and see that rollie pollies, slugs, or some other insect had eaten away the other side. Bummer!
The next issue was chipmunks and birds. If the insects didn’t get them, the other critters did. Of all the strawberries we grew, we hardly got to eat any of them ourselves. Sometimes the strawberries would rot on the moist ground, which was another problem. And did I mention we have a problem with moles too?
All that to say, our dream of growing strawberries… well, it didn’t yield that many berries, even when we planted a lot.

When one thing doesn’t work… try something else, right?
We started growing strawberries up off the ground in containers. That made a big difference! (Some of you might remember this red wagon picture from a blog post I wrote in 2020 about re-purposing containers for planting.)
Chipmunks and birds still enjoyed the berries, but we had less issues with insects when we grew the strawberries in containers.

Then in 2022 we purchased our first GreenStalk Vertical Planter. It was a game-changer. (I wrote all about it in this post.) We planted some strawberries in it and were so pleased with how well they did, that we planted more strawberries in our GreenStalk planters last year.
And this year?
This year we went for it and planted lots and lots of strawberries in our GreenStalk planters! We started with bare root strawberries, so you can see in the picture that the plants are not huge yet, but they are still producing a lot! This year we have been harvesting more strawberries in our garden than ever before.

Strawberries in this year’s garden. There is a raised bed behind the GreenStalk planter, with a bamboo trellis.
We love growing strawberries in the GreenStalk planters for many reasons. For one, we can grow SO many strawberries in a small area because of the vertical design. In the 7-Tier GreenStalk Leaf Vertical Planter there are 42 planting pockets. In that same amount of space on the flat ground, we could only plant maybe 4 or 5 strawberry plants.
Growing them up off the ground, we don’t have the issues with insects that we do with growing them on the ground. We noticed less insect damage when we grew strawberries in containers like I mentioned above, and then even less insect damage when growing them in the GreenStalk planters.
Also, the Greenstalk planters give us more protection from chipmunks and birds eating the berries because the berries are harder for them to get to. (We planned on putting bird netting over the planters, but didn’t end up needing to.) I must say, it is so great to be able to plants lots of strawberries and actually end up with many to eat!
The strawberries get lots of sunshine with the way that they drape over the sides of the planter pockets, making for ripe, delicious berries. (Another great thing has been not having the issue with strawberries rotting on the moist ground.)
Having the strawberries in the GreenStalk planters makes them so easy to grow too- easy to water, and easy to harvest. Not to mention less weeds!

Years ago, there were a few farms that had their u-pick strawberries available in a window of time in the month of June. You had to check in about picking times to make sure you didn’t miss the season. When I thought of June, I thought of strawberries.
There are June-bearing strawberries, and most varieties have one crop a year and give an abundance of berries. Since those early strawberry picking days, I’ve also learned about other kinds of strawberries that can produce for longer. Most varieties of Everbearing strawberries will produce two smaller crops, first in June and then in early fall.
There is a third kind of strawberry called Day-Neutral. These can produce all throughout the garden season. I was excited when we learned about them! We now plant Day-Neutral varieties in our garden so we can enjoy strawberries in the garden the whole season long.
Growing strawberries in the GreenStalk planters, and growing the Day-Neutral varieties have been two key things that have made it possible for us to enjoy more abundant strawberry harvests in our backyard.
The GreenStalk planters have been a great investment in our garden that have quickly paid for themselves, and then some. If you’d like to hear more about what we enjoy growing in our GreenStalk planters, and why we love them so much, be sure to check out this post.
The strawberry plants have more than paid for themselves too. (It’s recommended that the Day-Neutral strawberry plants be replaced every three years for best production.) I’m thinking that next year the plants will be even larger and more established, and the harvests could be even better than this year.
All that to say, we are very grateful to now have a way to be growing more strawberries in our own backyard and I wanted to share all about it with you.
I hope everything I’ve shared today will inspire you on your strawberry growing journey!
If you are interested in a GreenStalk vertical planter for your garden, you can get $10 off your first order when you use my link! When you use my link, it gives our family credit towards our next GreenStalk planter, which helps us grow more food in our backyard. Thank you for your support! I love devoting time to sharing inspiration in this space, and I love sharing about products and companies that have been a blessing in our life- with the hope that they may be a blessing in yours as well!
May your backyard strawberry harvests be abundant friends!

P.S. I found this adorable strawberry container at the thrift store. Isn’t it sweet?
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