Fraise Your Game – with Strawberry Toppers!

Let your fruits hang low for ease of plant care and picking! Available now, the AutoPot Strawberry Topper fits perfectly on the rim of 8.5 L / 2.2 gal pots. This ingenious growers-aid allows you to lay your strawberry plants side-on. Foliage grows up and fruits hang down – ideal for modules on shelves or elevated racking. Strawberry Topper is such a great solution for hobby and commercial growers alike that it positively behooves us to celebrate by exploring the simple, sweet, scarlet, sublimity of strawberry growing with AutoPot. Come along now, it won’t take long.

Strawberry Topper is the latest in our recent line of module accessories. The cheeky little strawberry beret adapts easy2grow modules for their most commonly used strawberry-growing configuration (up on high) and makes them look a little bit like castles to boot. Crenelate those modules! Simply sit a Strawberry Topper in place on the rim of your pot, fill pot with your substrate of choice, lay your strawberry plants side-on, and top off with a little extra media. Is there more to growing strawberries in AutoPot? Well, it’s all dazzling simple but we thought we’d put together a few top tips to help you bring home the ultimate flavour of summer.

Arguably the most heart-shaped of all fruits (discuss), strawberries are an ideal, satisfying, and, needless to add; delicious crop to try. Runners of young plants are so readily available from garden centres and the like, that it’s practically a sin not to give them a whirl. Pretty much any media can be used with AutoPot when growing strawberries provided that it is aerated, water-retaining, and wicks well to enable capillary action. This is vital in watering systems such as AutoPot where the supply arrives in a module tray below the pot.

Ideal pH for your strawberries will depend on the chosen media – always best to consult the packing your reputably produced substrate on that front. Where EC is concerned our strawberry supremo Benjamin Biggs of Plantasia recommends about 1.8. Strawberries have few quirks or foibles but are susceptible to aphids and spider mite. Keep a close eye out for fungal botrytis too; the ash-grey mould that can smother the fruits like a beard of death!

Botrytis needs nipping in the bud and fast, get any affected fruits off the plant pronto and prune judiciously. If your modules are down on the floor then unless you’re a rabbit, or similar, it can be tricky to see problems such as botrytis as they take hold. This is a key reason to grow elevated with strawberries – right up where you can see them easily.

Ever-ready to practice what we preach, we’ll be bringing you updates on this years’ AutoPot strawberry crop with Plantasia. Follow @plantasia_shop and @autopot_global to keep abreast.

The number of plants that can be cultivated in AutoPot is vast. We love it when growers of all stripes adopt the systems for their crops of choice – to devastatingly productive effect. To encourage and ease adoption we have compiled a range of free, simple guides to all aspects of growing in AutoPot. Available to download from our U.K. and U.S. websites now!