I love puttering about the garden and discovering a ripe strawberry that the resident chipmunk hasn’t yet discovered. You can establish your own strawberry patch by planting bare-root strawberries. In your garden, your landscape, or a container on your balcony, a few well-tended strawberry plants can offer delicious berries throughout the summer. I promise you, what you grow at home is in a whole different taste category than what you find at the grocery store.

In this article, I’ll cover why and how to plant bare-root strawberries, including what bare-root even means. Read on for step-by-step instructions, from preparing the soil to preparing the plants, getting the right spacing and depth, and helping your strawberries get off to the best start.

What is a bare-root strawberry?

A bare-root strawberry is just as it sounds. When you purchase bare-root strawberry plants, you are getting a dormant plant with a crown and roots. There’s no soil attached. These plants look like a tentacled mess of roots with a few greenish-brown leaves attached, but once you gently tease them apart, you’ll realize they’re just dormant plants ready for planting.

The benefits of bare-root planting

Some of the benefits to planting bare-root strawberry plants more than plugs include:

• I can find the varieties I want as bare-root plants from growers online, whereas many fewer varieties are available as plugs or already potted plants from my local nursery. Of course, if my local nursery has the bare-root variety I want, I prefer to source from them.
• You can find bare root strawberry plants for every growing zone. Choose one specifically for your climate, because these plants will overwinter in the ground and will be able to withstand the low temperatures of your growing region.
• Bare-root plants cost less than potted strawberry plants and plugs.
• Bare-root plants are easy to ship because they’re dormant and small. They’re likely to arrive in better condition than if you’d ordered and shipped plugs or grown plants.

Why planting bare-root strawberries properly matters

Planting bare-root strawberries is not like transplanting a plant with roots in soil. This is a slightly more involved process because you have to be sure the roots have a large enough hole to stretch vertically with a little bit of space to fan out, encouraging the roots to reach. It’s also important to set the bare-root plants at the proper depth, with the crown right at soil level.

How to prepare the soil for planting

Whether planting bare-root strawberries in a pot, a raised bed, or the ground, these plants want well-drained soil with a pH of 5.8 to 6.8. Mix in compost to improve the soil organic matter and soil drainage. Do a soil test a few weeks before planting so you can apply any recommended fertilizer and let it settle into the soil. If you apply fertilizer right before or right after planting, it can burn the roots.

Step 1: Soaking the bare-root strawberry plants

These bare roots need to be soaked for 30 minutes to several hours before planting so they can be rehydrated. You might start this process in a shallow bucket of water as you gather your tools and prepare the planting holes.

Step 2: Determining the spacing

How you space your plants will depend on where you’re planting them.

• In a row, such as in a raised bed or in the ground, plant them 12 to 24 inches (30 to 61 cm) apart in rows 36 to 48 inches (91 to 122 cm) apart.
• In a grid, such as in a container or a raised bed, plant them with one crown per square foot.

Step 3: How deep to plant bare-root strawberries

Getting the right depth when planting bare-root strawberries is important. First, the hole needs to be deep enough to accommodate the length of the roots stretching downward. You can trim back the roots to six inches (15 cm), if needed. Second, be sure the plant is deep enough so the roots and bottom half of the crown are fully covered with soil. The soil line should be at the crown’s midpoint.

Step 4: Backfilling the hole

With the plant properly oriented and roots fanning downward, replace the soil you removed from the hole. Firm the soil gently around the bottom half of the crown to remove air pockets. Water in the plants to settle the soil and give the roots the moisture they need to become established.

Step 5: Watering and mulching

Strawberries are mostly water, so regular watering will keep them growing. Too much water can make their flavor become diluted, so provide only about 1 inch (2.5 cm) per week.

Mulching with natural materials is also a must. A layer of mulch serves a few purposes:

• Mulch keeps the soil moist.
• Mulch keeps the soil cool in summer, which will aid in continuous berry production (in the case of everbearing strawberries).
• Mulch protects the roots from extreme cold in the winter.
• Mulch will keep the berries from touching the soil, so they’re cleaner when you pick them and less likely to rot.

More tips for strawberry success

Here are a few more tips for success:

• Plant bare-root strawberries in early spring.
• For the first season, remove the first set of flower buds. Doing away with these first-year blooms encourages the plants to put more if their energy into establishing roots before they produce fruits. The same goes for runners. You’ll especially see the payoff next spring, when you can let each bud grow into a berry.
• Come winter, add row cover or a layer of mulch over the strawberry plants to insulate them. They’ll grow up out of the mulch come spring, and you can remove the row cover after the threat of frost has passed.
• Consider the type of strawberries you want to grow: June-bearing strawberries produce all at once, in mid-June to early July; day-neutral strawberries offer a small, more consistent harvest over the growing season; everbearing strawberries have two flushes, in early summer and in early fall.
• Nightshade plants (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and potatoes) can share diseases with strawberries, so avoid planting in areas that have seen these crops for the past three years.

Now you have the basics to get started with your own bare-root strawberry plants. With these plants taking up so little space, you can easily add them to your garden, landscape, or a pot on your doorstep.

More advice on growing strawberries

• When to fertilize strawberries
• Transplanting strawberries
• Growing strawberries in raised beds
• Planting alpine strawberries
• Growing strawberries in pots