STRAWBERRIES
Plant: June to September
Harvest: April to June
January: Give plants a health check and look in pots for vine weevil grubs. Bring pots back into the polytunnel and stand them on a layer of manure. Give plants very little water for two weeks until new growth starts.
February: Keep compost moist and don’t let temperatures rise too high. Buy in strong young plants if you need more.
March: Early varieties might start to flower. Cover with fleece to protect flowers from frost.
April: Plants should be covered in flowers. Use a paintbrush to ensure even pollination. Keep compost damp and apply a liquid feed every seven days while fruit is swelling. In a warm spring there might be the first ripe fruit at the end of the month.
May: Cover with netting to keep birds off ripe fruit. Remove any fruit that is mouldy before the problem spreads. Keep feeding and water regularly while fruit is swelling. Pick all ripe fruit.
June: Keep harvesting. Watch out for slugs. Move pots out of the tunnel as soon as they stop producing fruit.
July: Peg runners down into 8cm/3in pots.
August: Continue to peg down runners, but only take the first young plant on any shoot. Remove any discoloured leaves from parent plants. Buy in more plants if needed.
September: Cut any shoot that joins parents to established, pegged-down plants. The new plants should have good roots by now and can be moved into 20cm/8in pots of compost. Remove any discoloured leaves. Pots should stay out of the polytunnel to be touched by frost.
October: If any flowers form, pick them off.
December: In a very cold winter, bring pots back into the tunnel (see Jan).
STRAWBERRY TROUBLES
Slugs: April to June
Red spider mite: May to September
Whitefly: March to September
Grey mould: April to June
Vine weevil: January to April and November to December
Birds: April to June