Alpine Strawberries | Aerogarden Addicts (2024)

Wow I just sampled a couple of Reine des Vallees Alpine Strawberries that I grew.

They were incredible (super sweet)!

As I've said before, my Kratky experiments have been extremely SLOW to grow.....

I started these seeds in December of last year and these were just now the first to try.

Now I want more... A LOT more, I just do not know how to go about setting up for a bunch of plants.

I sort of hate to dedicate one of my Bounties to them.

Hello,

I am a hydroponics "noob" and I have several questions.
I hope someone can help me out

I use Aero Garden products, and have had fairly good results with the "out of the box" instructions of using the micraclegrow (4-3-6) plant food and feeding every 2 weeks when the machine says to.

Ive added strawberries to my recent garden re-do

I have 2 FarmXLs, 2Harvests, and 2 Sprouts.
I have been feeding based on the fox farms chart, I am doing weekly feeding, but out of convenience I am also doing weekly water changes
I use RO water and i have Vivosun test pens that are calibrated once a week.

I have been trying to start some "Pine Berries and Strawberries" in a Harvest and in Mason "Kratky Method" jars.
so far i have only had 1 strawberry sprout in a harvest...
it is 2 weeks old and does not seem to be doing much
are these just super slow plants?
any tips for the mason jar? i have had some sprouts, but not alot of success.

Also, when planting a pod with these super tiny seeds, do i just put 1 seed per pod?

Hello & welcome to AGA! I've not grown strawberries in an AG or other hydroponic system. There are at least 1 or 2 AGA members that have, so hopefully, they will chime in. I understand that strawberries take patience! I've grown them outside, but finally gave up the efforts because my doggies would beat me to the ripe ones! Grrrrrr.

Anyway, welcome & look for other answers in the next couple of days!

I tried growing strawberries in a Kratky-style mason jar before - it took over three months before it formed a flower and it never produced an edible strawberry.

I'm planning to retry growing them in an AeroGarden at some point.

digitalfarming, I grew AG strawberries in a Bounty a few years ago. It required special equipment and procedures. AG used to make a special bowl for growing strawberries. You filled it with loose fiber (not perlite--AG sold the growing medium), and planted the AG pods. I don't remember exactly how the watering worked. AG had complete instructions in the blog, now found under Resources on the AG web site.

I did get a few tiny strawberries, but my garden was ended prematurely when I slipped on a seed pod outdoors, rolled my ankle, and broke my leg (some 5 years ago). I haven't tried again to grow strawberries, because they were slow to grow, and more trouble than they were worth.

digitalfarming , the Aerogarden blog says that AG no longer sells the special Grow Bowl needed for growing strawberries. However, it includes this method for growing them without the Grow Bowl--starting with live strawberry crowns purchased from a nursery.

www.aerogarden.com/blog/growing-strawberries/

Just today I started a Farm for Alpine Strawberries from seed. I and a couple others have done strawberry crowns in AG and they did very well, grew very fast, and grew in regular pods instead of the special bowl that AG used to sell - I ended mine (and all my other gardens) because of a thrip infestation and decided to experiment with seed because I never want to bring outside plants into my AG room again. But the berries were wonderful when I grew the crowns!!

The problem with strawberries from seed is that they need cold stratification before planting in order to increase the chances of germination. Putting the seeds in the refrigerator for a while (at least a month) will accomplish this. The pods, I think, are also too deep for the tiny strawberry seed (like chives). I brushed the seeds onto the tops of the pods in the hopes that it would improve germination chances. From my research the seeds can take 1-6 weeks to germinate, so they are slow to grow.

I'm looking forward to experimenting with growing from seed!

hey ok cool! i like that someone had success with the AG
I am trying from a seed in a pod... so far the best i can do is a little sprout... but he died already.

Please forgive my ignorance but what is a "crown" Is this like the berry plants i see for sale that are bare root?

Yes, bare root strawberry plants are usually crowns! This is a pretty interesting article on propagating strawberries (in the soil), if you're interested, but crowns are one of a couple of ways that strawberries spread themselves - they're the easiest way to separate and grow new plants, and are what's usually sold to folks not wanting to start from seed. The relevant quote from that article though:

Do you have something for monitoring pH? I found that strawberries are more sensitive to pH than other AG crops.

Most strawberries don't fruit until the second year. I don't know whether this is true of Alpines, which I haven't tried. When AG was promoting strawberries, I think it was Alpines, and their growing kits included crowns.

Good luck! 🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀

Mine are too and I have several flowers. Are your leaves starting to turn a reddish color? Each plant now has several reddish leaves and I don’t know why.

www.amazon.com/photos/shared/ucA1wiceQTORFxcaw1UbdA.oeAQbV0hKFeTk1y7QpgdBF

Hopefully you guys can see this. It’s the only way I could get this photo to show up!

The strawberries look fantastic.

Even though your link works, I think that Shawn can help you with posting the photo so that it will show up here despite being hosted by your photo service.