Perennials
Strawberries
Honest-hard: fall-planted annual, spring crop.
- Outside
- Plant crowns mid Sep to late Oct
- Where
- Raised bed, fresh ground each year
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Even in spring; winter rain does the rest
- Harvest
- Spring crop, Mar to May
Care
- Water
- Water the fall planting in and keep it damp while it roots; after that winter rain does most of the work in ground that never freezes solid. The crop drinks in spring, when the berries size: deep, even soaks in a dry April, without swings.
- Sow
- Plant crowns mid-September through late October, the fall window the Texas sources agree on, roots fanned straight down and half the crown above the soil line. Space them about a foot apart and plan the bed as an annual: fresh plants in fresh ground every fall.
- Feed
- A light hand: compost worked into the bed at planting, then a modest feed as growth resumes in late winter. No heavy nitrogen, which buys soft, disease-prone leaf. The annual plan makes long-term feeding moot; the crop is over before summer arrives.
- Ready
- Pick fully red, since strawberries ripen from the tip down and will not sweeten off the plant, and pick dry, checking daily once color starts. The crop is one spring flush; when the heat arrives the plants come out and the bed waits for its fall replant.
- Trouble
- Cotton root rot is the named risk: a soil-borne fungus prevalent in the calcareous clay loams of pH 7.0 to 8.5 that are Killeen's exact profile, and its host range is wide. Excellent drainage, a fresh bed each year, and modest expectations are the honest answer. Net the ripening crop or the birds finish it first.
In a bag?
- Yes
- Up to a 5–7 gal bag.
- Water
- Check a bag daily once growth resumes in spring; a bag dries faster than a bed and the fruiting flush will not forgive a dry week.
- Feed
- A light monthly liquid feed from late winter, since every watering leaches a bag; stop once the crop winds down.
- Sow
- Bag berries follow the same fall window, mid-September to late October; set fresh plants in fresh mix each fall, exactly as in the bed.
Strawberries are an honest-hard fall crop in Killeen. Crowns go in mid-September through late October, overwinter in ground that never freezes solid, and pay out one spring flush before the heat retires the bed.
Growing
The Texas treatment is fall-planted annuals: Travis County's strawberry page and Texas A&M's fall-planting guidance agree on a mid-September to late-October planting for a spring harvest. That inverts the northern matted-row model deliberately, because the perennial berry patch is what this climate and this soil make expensive. Cotton root rot is the standing risk the entry carries plainly: the disease pages name it prevalent in calcareous clay loams of pH 7.0 to 8.5, Killeen's exact ground, and the fungus's wide host range is why the risk rides in with the soil. The sourced answers are excellent drainage, a fresh bed each year, and modest expectations. Plants that thrive grow through the winter greens season, fruit with the spring, and come out when the heat arrives. No Texas source names varieties for this treatment, so starts come from the fall nursery run unnamed.
In the kitchen
The spring flush is a fresh-eating crop, a bowl at a time, and rarely survives to the pot. The point is the first strawberries of the year out of your own bed, which the store berries never quite manage.