Hi Elizabeth......welcome back!......dougandpam

Non-everbearing strawberries are better for Florida because strawberries will only produce during the cooler month and have to be taken out every year so the 'everbearing' aspect is wasted. It's pretty late to plant strawberries - I put mine in in October and started picking in December. You might be able to get some if you get them in right away though. I'm in 10a in St. Petersburg though so you would probably be 9b and that might be different. I do something similar to the instructions in the link but scaled down. Dig a hole, make a pyramid of dirt and fan the roots out before covering up. The key is to have the crown just about the soil line. You have to keep them constantly moist for about the first 2 weeks until they root. I picked about 2.5 lbs of berries today today.

Here is a link that might be useful: University of Florida Strawberry planting guidlines

Hello Doug and Pam!!!! Good to hear from you.... It has been too long and I wish you both well.

Hello Derbyka, thank you very much for your response. I am in fact in zone 9. I am a bit cooler than you, however, not that much! Does everyone in zone 9 lift their strawberries each year? I was hoping for something a bit less effort and more production :-)

Best,

Elizabeth

Hi Elizabeth! I am glad that you are back!

I don't grow strawberries but when growing something new I usually take a look at what is in season locally and strawberries have been in season for a while now, there is also a strawberry festival coming up in Plant City.

Silvia

Strawberries don't generally set fruit once the temperature goes above 80 degrees if I'm not mistaken. I'm not sure if this can be taken as the typical result, but one of the gardeners in our community garden kept his strawberry plants alive over the summer. Mine were getting a black kind of fungus or something by early Summer. His looked like an everbearing type and by Sept looked awful. Then in October, they bounced back and started looking healthy and green. I started kicking myself for pulling mine out and starting over. Then, however, when it came to December, just as they started to put out blossoms they went downhill again. At this point, about 1/2 of the plants have been completely wiped out by fungus, and he has only gotten a few berries.