Try a new, improved strawberry

This is the perfect time to start planning so that your strawberry crop next year is the best ever.

If you have a strawberry bed, tidy it up in the next month or so. Untidy beds are at greater risk of disease, which will affect cropping next year. Look out for any signs of virus and assess whether plants need replacing. The widest range of varieties is available in October so you can choose the best for flavour and performance.

Commercial strawberry producers have developed many new varieties and growing techniques that have benefits for home gardeners too.

You can grow fruit over a longer season, with excellent flavour and disease-resistance. You can also obtain better yields from less space, reduce the need for fungicides and use less water.

he best thing about growing your own strawberries is that you can pick them fresh, at just the right stage of ripeness when they are juicy, with a sweet flavour and aroma – qualities that change within a day of picking.

You can also seek out varieties that the supermarkets do not stock. 'Sallybright’, a British-bred variety listed by Dobies and Suttons, is a tasty early variety, but the berries are too fragile for supermarkets.

'Malwina’ is a juicy, flavoursome late berry but is deemed too dark a red to sell well in supermarkets. Fortunately, most mail order fruit specialists are listing it. Both are Which? Gardening best buys for flavour, but you can only get them if you buy runners this autumn.

The Which? survey (June 2011) also recommended 'Darlisette’, 'Elsanta’ and 'Sonata’. This summer, as part of a Thompson & Morgan blind taste test, I sampled six new varieties. My two favourites were 'Sweetheart’ for its peardrop flavour and 'Cupid’ for being extra sweet and juicy.

British growers now supply supermarkets with fresh strawberries from April to October, so if you finish picking strawberries in three weeks, consider extending your season by growing an early, mid and late variety.

Another good reason for trying new varieties is that they offer higher yields. R W Walpole is a family firm who have been growing strawberries in Norfolk since 1926, yet Paul Walpole is in no doubt that new varieties are higher yielding: “Old favourites such as 'Royal Sovereign’ or 'Cambridge Favourite’ produce 7oz and 12oz of fruit per plant respectively, but it is easy to find modern varieties that give 1½lb-2lb 3oz per plant,” he says.

When it comes to fruit quality, heavy rain, careless watering or wet soils can spoil the fruit and spread diseases such as grey mould (Botrytis), which makes fruits inedible. For high rainfall areas, Paul recommends varieties with waxy berries such as 'Fenella’ and 'Elegance’. 'Cupid’ is disease resistant, and also rain-tolerant, as its leaves protect the fruits.

Infection can often be traced back to planting too close or the flowers getting too wet. To prevent grey mould, always direct water at the surface of the soil, so the flowers are not wetted. When heavy rain is forecast, a temporary cover of perforated polythene will help.

Straw suppresses weeds and protects the ripening fruit from rot. However, it is vital to wait until there is very little risk of frost before laying straw.

Too early and you will only succeed in making the flowers more vulnerable to frost: the straw acts as a barrier between them and the insulating effect of the soil.

Tabletop growing is a commercial technique that uses growing bags raised off the ground and fitted with automatic watering. This gives growers more control over the crop, and uses less space. It also means they don’t need to sterilise the soil and there is better air circulation around the crop, meaning less disease. The watering and feeding is very precise, hence less waste of resources and less feed leaching into the water table. Picking the fruit is also easier, as is weed control.

For home gardeners, the ability to get more out of a small space, better quality fruit and ease of picking are all advantages that can be copied. Use eight to 10 plants per bag, and support them on a couple of upturned packing crates. Cut a plastic water bottle in half and insert it into the compost upside down. Give a regular dose of liquid tomato feed containing seaweed extract.