Strawberries are one of the easiest fruits to grow. The do take a little maintenance but no more than any other flower bed arrangement. This variety of strawberry plant is the Ozark Beauty strawberry. It's a cold hardy, ever-bearing variety. There available at most online nursery sites like Stark Bro's. These berries are great for anything I've tried from jam/jelly to pies, cake, wine and don't forget the strawberry margaritas.

Having a cold hardy variety of strawberries is essential in central Indiana. Although we don't have extended periods of extremely cold weather, we do have nights during the winter that can reach from -10°F to -15°F. The ever-bearing part of the description means that after an initial production of strawberries in the early summer the plants continue to produce strawberries until frost (and sometimes after that). The initial production of strawberries can be quiet heavy. It's not uncommon for us to pick a half gallon of berries a day for this two to three week period. After that fewer are produced but there is normally plenty for bowls of cereal throughout the summer.

Having the strawberries in a raised bed helps with two things. Strawberries prefer well drained soil, raising the bed assures adequate drainage. The other thing the bed takes care of is containing the strawberries. Strawberries reproduce by forming runners where new plants start. After the first new plant starts forming on the runner, the runner may continue and start a second or third new plant. Left unchecked, this 4 feet wide bed would easily double in width over a summer if it were on the ground.

The strawberry plants are so aggressive at reproducing they need to be thinned out on a regular basis. I try to take care of this every spring. This is the bed after I removed at least 80% of the plants and added some fresh soil. When thinning a strawberry bed like this, thinning too many out will take care of itself very quickly as the remaining plants grow.

When I was building this bed, I had finished the outside walls when my wife came out to look at it. With a curious look on her face she asked if I was going to fill it with dirt. I carefully explained to her that the walls were simply to contain the runners so they didn't spread throughout the yard, that she would have to reach down to pick the strawberries. She simply nodded her head and went to a different topic of conversation. An hour or so later she asked "Are you really not going to fill the strawberry bed with dirt?". After a good laugh, I assured her it would be filled, alleviating her concern of having to reach all the way down to the bottom of the bed to pick strawberries. My wife is a very intelligent lady, very book smart. Unfortunately, common sense is rarely ever written in a book.