Dreaming of a Strawberry Hugelkultur

I have a grand plan of a path from the house to the field.

On the north side of the path I want to build a few hugels, in between and on the north side of the hugels I would grow fruit trees (apple, pear and plums).

Here is a totally not in scale of a sketch, just to give the basic idea:




I would like to make the first hugelkultur full of strawberries!

I have a few questions though.

1. Traditionally strawberries are grown in neat rows with the surrounding ground covered in plastic. Is it because that way the strawberry wont spread, weeds wont grow and the berries stay clean plus the extra heat from the black plastic is giving? Is that all?

Obviously I'm not doing anything with plastic but mulching with straw or woodchips. I don't have a supply of either yet so I'm not sure which one (if either) I would use.
I don't have a problem with the strawberry spreading, it's encouraged!

2. What to plant with the berries? I've read that at least garlic and lettuce like to live with strawberries. I'm thinking the hugel facing to south will probably be way too hot of a place for lettuce though..
I have a new, just published book on companion planting so I might find answers for this myself when I get the time to open the book. Still a few BBs to go until that, hehe.

3. The plan is to buy strawberry plants for the hugel this year. I will also plant seeds this year (and year after year indefinitely).
Last year there was a man in town selling strawberries that had been grown without any fertilizers, I'm planning to find him this year, buy some strawberries and mush them, add water and spread the strawberrysmoothie around the hugel. Oh and also talk to the man and hear about his strawberries and other cool stuff he probably has on his property.


I think that was it for now. Anyone with experience with strawberries out there? Do I have any major flaws in my plans already?

I like your plan.

I don't know what is traditional when growing strawberries.

I have never grown strawberries as you have described with rows and plastic.  Maybe those are market gardens?

Dear hubby made a little circular bed for my strawberries.  I don't remember how many plants I started with nor do I remember what variety the strawberry plants were though maybe everbearing?

I was happy to get the new plants from runners.

To me, a hugelkultur bed would be a great place to grow strawberries.

What to plant with strawberries?  Asparagus as it is a companion plant.

Thank you for the input Anne!

Anne Miller wrote:I don't know what is traditional when growing strawberries.

Well, truth to be told, neither do I. That's just all I have seen, from backyards to market gardens. Last spring I also dug out a old strawberry patch from our property. Those horrible black plastics were grown well into the ground.

Anne Miller wrote:What to plant with strawberries?  Asparagus as it is a companion plant.

I was wondering what was the one I forgot, it was asparagus indeed! That would be interesting plant to grow. Everyone says the asparagus you buy from a store cannot even be compared to homegrown..
Oh well, isn't that true with everything homegrown though?

I did a small strawberry hugel for a few years. Runners can cut down on fruit production because of the amount of energy they take to produce. Pruning them off the mother, then propagating them increased my fruit production. I also companion planted mine with creeping squashes, wild herbs, onions, and tomatoes. I hope your hugel goes well.

Thank you Morgan! Good point about the runners possibly cutting down production.

Now that you mentioned that, I started thinking about sacrificing the harvest of the first summer.. If I pinch out all the flowers, would the plants eventually start focusing on making runners? That way I could plant fewer crowns and let the plants spread on their own.


This project is still very much in the planning stage, so I'm not quite sure of the actual way of planting so that harvesting doesn't mean stepping on everything.. It will get clearer!


Edit. Oh and Morgan, a warm welcome to Permies!

Maybe I'm a little too... particular... about keeping track of crowns and what year they're in (and thus when they need replaced.) But. I've been very happy with my tiered huglekulture tailored to growing strawberries.

https://permies.com/t/145053/Strawberry-Pyramid-Hugelkultur

Wow Matt, that's beautiful!

I'm planning on a bit bigger hugelkultur.. The woody part will be maybe triple from yours. Or more. Neighbour has a sawmill and I get tractor trailer loads of the leftover wood from the sawing quite cheap. The D-shaped bark side parts of the trunk when you saw the boards from the O-shaped trunk of a tree. If someone knows the real words for the stuff I just tried to explain, please do tell.

Saana Jalimauchi wrote:Thank you Morgan! Good point about the runners possibly cutting down production.

Now that you mentioned that, I started thinking about sacrificing the harvest of the first summer.. If I pinch out all the flowers, would the plants eventually start focusing on making runners? That way I could plant fewer crowns and let the plants spread on their own.


This project is still very much in the planning stage, so I'm not quite sure of the actual way of planting so that harvesting doesn't mean stepping on everything.. It will get clearer!


Edit. Oh and Morgan, a warm welcome to Permies!

I do not know if the plants would do that as I've never had experience with cutting the blooms. You could always plant different patches and experiment to see what works the best. Would be interesting to see what happens.
With my strawberries, and that of my neighbors, they usually focus on growing runners and very, very, few flowers in general unless there was runner pruning.
Thanks! Been reading for a while and decided to join.

I’m thinking that the hugelkultur will be so big there will be room for some experiments, it’s definetly worth it to see what happens if I pinch off all the flowers from some of them!

Maybe I’ll also try planting both junebearing and everbearing kinds of strawberries, before I was only thinking about junebearing.

I’m thinking that I will make a not-so-steep of a hugelkultur, maybe flat and wide from the top so that it would be kind of like a raised bed from the north side. I’m imagining some kind of sectors of different kinds of strawberry growths with maybe the garlic and the asparagus and some flowers, making it stripey!

Some kinds of steps or ladders striping it too to make harvesting easier, those will be fun for the toddler to climb on!

My strawberries are more like big patches.  I started with 6 plants and now I have thousands in 3 beds.    I don't really care if runners cut down production as I have more strawberries than I can pick fast enough to get them all.   Loads get left behind for animals and slugs.   A hugel sounds like a good way to access them for picking, not sure if it also makes them more available for birds.   My patches are dense enough I don't seem to lose many.    They are all interplanted with other things.    I put pumpkins in last year and that worked great.

Thank you Heather for the reply and the beutiful pictures! I love the tulips here and there between the strawberries.

Have you ever replaced older crowns or just let everything be as it is and do its thing?

Every spring I go through and pull out handfuls of plants to give away, lol.  So that thins out the beds.  I don't really do much else.  It would be a pain to try to sort out "old" plants from "new" ones.  I do toss more woodchips on the bed and lightly rake it to pull some of the leaves up through.  

I think weed competition is the main reason for mulching with plastic.   I mulched the single plant my daughter brought home from preschool a few years ago with shredded leaves and not only did it thrive, but filled an entire bed and part of the pathways by the second year.   As long as you mulch and keep up with any emerging weeds the first year, they should do fine.  Just be sure to make sure they have plenty of water while they're getting established.

Heather, well that is a great way to thin out the beds, giving the plants away! I know I would be happy to receive such a gift.

Michelle, thank you for replying! I'm starting to get the feeling that strawberries are not that difficult or demanding crop to grow. Plenty of water while establishing and weeding meticulously in the first year, I think I can handle those!

I might actually use leaves as a mulch as you have done, they might be the easiest for me to acquire. Shredding the leaves though, any advise on that?

Saana, we have a couple of small chipper/shredders and I generally run the leaves through them to shred them.  I've also used a lawnmower which generally creates smaller pieces but involves raking them back up again unless you have a bagger.  

Lawnmover over the leaves it is! Hubby might give me a funny look though when I build him a racing track from leaves.. Oh well.

Really good companion planting was spinach with strawberries in a straw bale planting.

Hi Saana, a few more (purely anecdotal/my experience) strawberry ideas for you. The rounded pieces milled off the outside of the log, as well as the trimmings from edges of boards are typically called slabs, at least that's all I've ever heard them called. I've actually used the thicker ones to make the sides of raised beds. But, they would be good Hugel material as well. Can you get sawdust from that same mill? I would recommend that, over leaves, as mulch for the strawerries, if you can't get wood chips. If you have slugs, they will be less inclined to traverse sawdust or woodchips, than leaves. Slugs and birds are the main enemies of berries. Also squirrels and sometimes ants. Companion planting that makes them harder to find might help.
Strawberries need lots of sun, so if your hugels are oriented N-S that may not work as well, but on the south side of an E-W hugel they should do great (and maybe lettuce or peas on the cooler north side). We are at a high latitude as well, so I realize you need to make the most of long days/ short summers and sun angle.
As far as runners/blossoms, I find they don't really compete, as the runners don't seem to get sent out until August, well after the berries ripen, but mine are mostly 'June bearing' plants (July here), which are better producers in our location than the everbearing ones. We do have some of those too, but they just sort of dribble in randomly so it's hard to plan on any specific amount. I have never planted seeds, so can't offer any tips on that aspect, but with plants, it seems like they send out a runner or two the first year, then maybe 3 or 4 every year after that. So... a dozen plants in year one could end up being maybe a hundred by year three. I don't keep track of ages, but plants are typically 'exhausted' after a few years, and you'll know which ones by the lack of blossoms. On strawberry farms they seem to keep wide spacing between rows, and then train the runners to grow between the established rows, sort of switching back and forth every year or two (so the runners become the new row, and the old row gets plowed under). I space plants a foot apart in both directions in raised beds, and it starts out nice and organized looking, but if I don't keep up with the runners it becomes a jungle! My goal is to let the runners barely root, then move them to a new bed, or plant in small containers to give away or sell.

Janice Carey wrote:Really good companion planting was spinach with strawberries in a straw bale planting.

Thank you Janice! I might try spinach too!

Julie Reed wrote:The rounded pieces milled off the outside of the log, as well as the trimmings from edges of boards are typically called slabs, at least that's all I've ever heard them called. I've actually used the thicker ones to make the sides of raised beds.

Mystery solved, thank you! I planned to make sides for a raised bed from slabs, I even cut them but then didn’t have time to make the actual bed.

Julie Reed wrote:Can you get sawdust from that same mill? I would recommend that, over leaves, as mulch for the strawerries, if you can't get wood chips. If you have slugs, they will be less inclined to traverse sawdust or woodchips, than leaves.

Yes, I can get sawdust from there too. I was under the impression that sawdust wasn’t good as a mulch.. I might be wrong.

We have lived here for two summers now, so far I haven’t seen slugs. That doesn’t mean anything though, if I ever happen to give them a nice habitat somewhere where I grow stuff we might suddenly meet with the slugs.. I’ll try to take this into consideration with my strawberryhugel!

Julie Reed wrote: Slugs and birds are the main enemies of berries. Also squirrels and sometimes ants. Companion planting that makes them harder to find might help.

Hnmm, I might need to do something to keep the birds away.. Something very artistic and shiny that moves in the wind..

There was this idea of spreading small stones painted red around a strawberry patch in the spring, so that the birds would go after them and then learn that there is nothing to eat there, just stones.. The legend tells that the berries were left alone.

Julie Reed wrote: Strawberries need lots of sun, so if your hugels are oriented N-S that may not work as well, but on the south side of an E-W hugel they should do great (and maybe lettuce or peas on the cooler north side).

Yep, south side for the strawberries it is in a E-W hugel!


Thank you Julie for telling about your experiences, you shared a lot of valuable information!

Saana Jalimauchi wrote:      Yes, I can get sawdust from there too. I was under the impression that sawdust wasn’t good as a mulch.

It's controversial, as are woodchips, because of their reputation for robbing nitrogen from the soil. But, my understanding is that as long as neither is mixed in with the soil, but just stay on top as mulch, the only nitrogen they can get to is on the very surface, so it may not be as big a concern as is rumored. I have used woodchips as mulch (on all sorts of crops) for years with no apparent ill effects, and have also used sawdust on strawberry beds. Interestingly, I find the woodchips decompose faster than sawdust does, despite the magnitudes bigger size of the pieces. But a pile of woodchips will attract worms, and that's something I haven't seen with sawdust. It may also have something to do with the fact that sawdust is always from 'inner wood', whereas the chips I get are a mix of mostly branches with leaves.
Birds and squirrels are a far worse problem for us than slugs, which are relatively easy to control. We ended up buying netting to cover the beds. I'd read about the red stones trick, but haven't tried it, because if it didn't work we'd still be out a bunch of nice berries, whereas we know the netting works. The annoying thing is- they won't just eat a few berries, which would be acceptable. They peck a few bites out of every damn one!
Best of luck in your strawberry endeavors!

I lived in a commercial strawberry growing region for a time. The acres of black plastic was so they could fumigate the soil with a fungicide.  

That always seemed so odd to me! Since strawberries like a soil with a lot of fungus in it. I guess there was a pathogenic fungus though, I don’t know.

Maybe other people and backyard gardeners use the black plastic for something else. I don’t know that either!  To me black plastic seems more like toxic gick than mulch.

I think the north-south Hugelbed could have plenty of sunshine for strawberries on both sides but that depends on how high the hugel is. I guess latitude would also enter in on that question.

Strawberry plants original home was forest floor edge and openings.  They got plenty of sun but lived in a soil with huge amounts of humus and rotting wood.  

If you’re getting fresh material then you are going to be continuously supplying the decomposing wood. If you had a place you could age the chips and sawdust for a season your strawberry plants might like that better. If you get a good soil food web established I don’t think you need to worry about nitrogen being robbed from the soil by your mulch.  One place I planted strawberries, I interplanted white clover.  I moved away so I can’t report on long term results.

Your strawberry hugelbed sounds like a wonderful plan and I wish I could help you eat the berries!

Back in the olden days before toxic gick strawberries were mulched with straw. But a thought for your hugle and sawdust mulch, mushrooms! Wine caps are supposed to be easy and love wood chips. So far I've only grown oyster mushrooms but I have refreshed the original kit mix with sawdust and they seem to like it great. I'm also trying to inoculate logs with them but that's a much longer term project. Dr. Redhawk has information on mushroom slurry that he inoculated his lands with. You may not want to mix types because then the fungi fight each other but stripes like you were talking about planting the strawberries made from every type of fresh mushroom you can buy in the store might give a nice bonus crop.

We planted six strawberry plants two years ago in a hugel bed about 3' tall with a rounded top. The first year the plants established and produced just a few berries. Last year they went crazy and produced a lot of fruit and tons of runners. I didn't add anything to the soil except a little pee and rotted hay for mulch. I plan to move them to a new hugel bed further away from the house where they can do what they want (up to a point). Good groundcover that requires little to no care is hard to find with our soil.

Our hugels are pine/fir based wood with logs, chips, and a little of our fairly crappy soil (glacial till). We've had great success with this combination which is good since that's what we have.

 Thekla McDaniels wrote:  
I think the north-south Hugelbed could have plenty of sunshine for strawberries on both sides but that depends on how high the hugel is. I guess latitude would also enter in on that question.

Strawberries seem to do best with ample sunlight. We are north of 60 degrees, and what happens with a N-S hugel is the east side gets a few hours of morning sun, both sides get an hour of noon sun, and the west side gets a few hours of afternoon sun. On June 21st there's plenty of sun (18 hours or so) to go around, but a month or more before and after that and it becomes a case of the plants on each side only getting half a day of good sunlight. Not sure how it would work out at different latitudes, and with 'less steep than typical' hugels. But here, anything that loves sun needs to be on the south side of an E-W oriented mound, or just in a raised bed or garden. And due to all of that, we only have a couple hugel mounds here. It's easier to just make a raised bed, with the first 12-18" being the rotting logs to get the same effect, and then they get all day sun.

Robin Katz wrote:
Our hugels are pine/fir based wood with logs, chips, and a little of our fairly crappy soil (glacial till).

Glacial till is certainly not humus/loam, but don't necessarily write it off as crappy- it generally has a lot of minerals and trace elements that many soils are lacking. In one way it's the best of both worlds, because it's often easier to build soil than amend soil with minerals.

Thank you everyone for the replies! At the time you all posted I was running really low on spoons so I had no energy to reply to you.

Mushroom ideas: How would the mushrooms deal with the all sun and warmth? I was under the impressions that mushrooms like shade and moisture.. I really know nothing about mushrooms, but this idea does intrigue me! Aaand that I think of it, nature would probably take care of itself and the mushrooms probably would appear later in the fall when it gets colder and wetter.

Now that the spring came and snows melted I realized that I have a lot of hay for mulch. The mushrooms would need the woodchips or sawdust though… We will see. Maybe I’ll experiment and do both if I get some woodchips from somewhere.

Some people grow their mushrooms in sterilized straw.

Ooooh… I’ll have to look up the Dr. Redhawks thread you mentioned and then take a head first dive into the fungiforums!