Does the Same Strawberry Plant Fruit Every Year?

Types of Strawberries

• Home gardeners can choose among three different types of strawberries. June-bearing strawberries produce the largest crop, but the fruit all arrives in one concentrated period in June. "Everbearing" strawberries disappoint those who take the name literally. These plants offer one crop in late spring followed by a second in early fall. The later crop is considerably smaller than the first one. A relatively new type of plant, day-neutral strawberries, produce fruit all season long.

Planting Strawberries

• Strawberries will not fruit without ample direct sunlight -- 10 hours a day for optimal production. If you plant in a location with six hours, your berries will be fewer and of lower quality. Strawberry plants die in standing water and rapidly succumb to drought, so the soil must be rich but well-draining. Early spring planting works best. Each plant produces up to 1 quart of fruit each growing season for the first few years.

June-Bearing Plants

• June-bearing strawberry plants renew themselves annually with a little help from the gardener. Following the June berry harvest, you should mow off the leaves of the plants to stimulate production of runners, narrowing the strawberry rows to half their original width. The plants produce new runners that replace the old growth and fruit the following spring. The runner system results in good berries for up to five years, but at that point you must replace the entire planting.

Everbearing and Day-Neutral Plants

• While both everbearing and day-neutral strawberry harvests exceed the length of the June-bearing crop, the productive life span of these plants is shorter. With these species, you should remove runners as they appear and rely on the original plants for second- and third-year production. After the third year, the crop declines dramatically, and it is time for you to buy and set out new strawberry plants.