Small to Tiny Strawberries

**donnainzone5** 7/9/2014, 5:29 pm

Although I've been harvesting 2-3 servings of strawberries each week, most of them are quite small, if not tiny, with just a few of medium size.

Could it be water? Lack of "food"? I did leave last year's leaves as fodder, and threw a small amount of rabbit manure into the bed this spring. This is the second year for this bed, and I think that the original plants were second-year.

Oops! Looking out at the bed, I think they may have too much nitrogen; they're very tall. Perhaps the bit of rabbit manure was too much.

The bed is a mixture of June-bearing and ever-bearing plants.

Pollinator 7/10/2014, 8:21 am

donnainzone10 wrote:Although I've been harvesting 2-3 servings of strawberries each week, most of them are quite small, if not tiny, with just a few of medium size.

Could it be water? Lack of "food"? I did leave last year's leaves as fodder, and threw a small amount of rabbit manure into the bed this spring. This is the second year for this bed, and I think that the original plants were second-year.

Oops! Looking out at the bed, I think they may have too much nitrogen; they're very tall. Perhaps the bit of rabbit manure was too much.

The bed is a mixture of June-bearing and ever-bearing plants.

If the strawberries are poorly-shaped, and especially if they have a hard, green undeveloped area, the commercial growers call these "dinkleberries," and they are a result of poor pollination.

If they are normal shaped, just running small, it's likely other factors are the controlling ones here.

**donnainzone5** 7/10/2014, 10:46 am

I think I've had a few "dinkleberries," although many are merely small. Now that the bees are out in force, the the everbearing plants should bear well, once they bloom again.

Should I sprinkle a bit more rabbit manure on the bed? Or perhaps some of my 8-way compost?

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Small to Tiny Strawberries

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