How to Grow Everbearing Strawberries

Everbearing strawberries produce fruit for months, not weeks and are extremely popular with gardeners (and consumers, of course). Growing them is very different from traditional strawberries so we’ve put together a guide to show you how to grow everbearing strawberries like the experts at Heeman’s.

The differences between an ideal growing system for everbearing and June bearing strawberries is drastic. It is very difficult to recreate the ideal conditions that will product a great crop of everbearing strawberries at home. Don’t get discouraged if you’re berries don’t fruit as long, as big or survive the winter as well as a commercial grower like Heeman’s.

How to Plant Your Everbearing Strawberries

Before you plant everbearing strawberries you will need to create a raised bed with square shoulders up to 12″/30″ in height. In an ideal system you’d cover this raised bed with a layer of black or white plastic, covered with soil on sides and ends to keep it in place. The raised bed and plastic is to create a root zone that will be exposed to the sun as long as possible. The plastic locks in the warmth and keeps out the rain, which is important because everbearing strawberries don’t grow well in constantly wet soil.

Puncture a hole in the plastic (if you have it) to plant the strawberries so only the crown is exposed. Planting should be done in late April through to the end of May. When the first blossom appears, cut it off, as it will stunt your plants growth. The next flowers that emerge will be left and will produce fruit between the end of July and beginning of August. Continue to pick fruit as it ripens well into October.

General Care & Overwintering

You will not pick as many strawberries off your everbearing plant immediately, but over the course of the season it will out-produce a June bearing strawberry plant. Expect one piece of fruit per week per plant from your everbearing strawberries. At the end of the season you can remove the plants and plastic and turn over soil or cover with a light cloth blanket to help prevent winter injury. Everbearing strawberries are not ideally suited for Canadian winters so some loss may occur if not properly protected. Remove blanket in the spring at first sign of blossom and cover nightly when frost is in the weather forecast. If you follow these steps, which can be labourious, you should get red fruit at the end of May for several weeks. The plants will ‘shut down’ with the heat and then start fruiting again in August with a noticeable decline in yield and size.

At Heeman’s we only keep our everbearing strawberries over for their early season production and remove the plants after the newly planted fields start to come into heavy production. We strongly recommend you plant your full acreage (or square footage) each year and plant to replace plants annually.

This is a guide to growing everbearing strawberries. If you are interested in growing a June bearing variety, we recommend reading our guide How to Grow Strawberries.