Richard Evans wrote:
wrote:
On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:52:12 -0400 in Richard Evans wrote:
The strawberries in my container garden are bearing fruit, but as the
berries get heavier, they lie in the dirt and the side touching the
dirt rots.
Am I missing something here?
Mulch.
Why would that make a difference? I'm assuming the rot is caused by
trapped moisture. What difference whether it's trapped between berry
and dirt or berry and mulch?
The dirt, top soil, is usually wet on the surface. The wet soil is what
causes the rotting. It does take much time for a ripe strawberry to rot
if it touches the wet soil surface.
Mulch will help to reduce rotting significantly since the surface of the
mulch will dry out much faster than that of top soil after watering.
Even if the mulch does not dry out fast, because of the coarse nature of
the mulch, there is less surface area where the strawberry and the mulch
are in contact with one another. Less wet surface area translated to
less rotting.