Strawberries in a tunnel.

amandstu

Up to now I have always planted strawberries in the open and so this is my first year of trying this out.
So far so (very) good.But I am worried about what will happen when we get the inevitable prolonged sauna bath conditions that passses for our climate.

Even out in the open this can fairly decimate the fruit on the plants one way or another and I anticipate that in a fairly poorly ventilated heath robinson affair that is my "tunnel" that the risk of fruit rot will be even more extreme.

I have no intention of trying any chemical sprays and so my plan is to remove the cover when the fruits start to ripen .

Is this a good plan?

Most of the growth will have already gone into the roots and the leaves by then and I have never found that the fruits themselves were hugely improved by a baking heat (they are still delicious in quite cool conditions).

I don't think I have a real choice anyway but would it be very important to remove the plastic from the tunnel well before there are indications of fruit rot or could I take a chance and leave it on as long as possible?

Actually another problem I am anticipating is fruit drop which happened to me once and practically destroyed a fine vigourous crop of Strawberries in the past.

redser7

I grow an early crop in my tunnel and have no problems at all . So long as you keep them off the wet soil they should be fine.

amandstu

OK i'll give it a trial run but I will blame you if they fail!