Frigo strawberries: from planting to storage

What are frigo strawberries? When and how should you use the frigo plants? We give tips on everything from planting to care to harvesting and storing the frozen strawberry plants.

To big, tasty Strawberries The frigo strawberry was developed for professional cultivation so that it can be harvested in a predictable manner and over the entire growing season. Contrary to what the name sounds like, the frigo plants are not a species or variety of their own. They are just plain specially treated, normal strawberries. Here you can find out where frigo strawberries come from, how to grow the frigos and even how to make them yourself.

What are frigo strawberries?

Frigo strawberries are strawberry offshoots that are removed from mother plants in winter and then stored refrigerated at -1 ° C for up to ten months.
With frigo plants, strawberries can be grown very late in the year, almost regardless of when they were naturally harvested. The idea of ​​the frigo strawberry comes from professional cultivation, as it offers a price advantage to be able to offer strawberries late in the year. Because German growers use frigo strawberries, supermarkets do not have to use imported goods in late summer and autumn.

But how do you do this? Strawberry plants receive a cold stimulus in winter, which gives them the incentive to bloom in the coming year - this is called blooming induction. Naturally, the plant would sprout in the following spring, bloom after four to six weeks and bear fruit after eight weeks. The harvest for the year would have been largely over in July after all the different varieties had been exhausted. The exception are the rather smaller strawberries, which are the remontant ones Strawberry varieties shed later in the year. Often it is hardly worth harvesting them.

It is different with the frigo plants. These plants were taken out of the earth, sorted and stored in winter. While there are already a number of plants in the field in spring and summer, they are made to believe that it is still winter. The blooming plants lie dark and cool in the foil bag and hibernate. About five weeks before the naturally grown strawberries deliver the final harvest, they are thawed and planted. Now the strawberry plants continue to develop as normal: because the plants believe it is spring, it takes about four weeks for flowering and eight weeks for the first harvest. So if you thaw and plant frigo strawberries in batches between the beginning of May and the beginning of July, you can harvest large, high-quality strawberries by mid-October.

Tip: There are differences between different quality grades of the frigo plants. Normal frigos are small plants that are removed from the removed plants at the end of the season. Then there are so-called waiting bed plants. They were separated from their mother plants much earlier, continued to be cultivated in the waiting bed with plenty of space and fertilizer and are correspondingly larger. Waiting bed plants are also cleared in winter and sold as larger, more expensive frigo plants the following year. They deliver higher yields than the normal frigo plants.

Planting frigo strawberries

Frigo plants are sold as leafless, bare-root plants. They only consist of roots and the so-called crown, i.e. the bud close to the ground for the new shoot. You can only order them online, because frigo plants are only thawed shortly before they are shipped. Below we describe how you can store frigo strawberries, i.e. how you can produce them yourself.

Tip: Because the frigo strawberries only bear when they are frozen later in the year, they will be ready for harvest in the following year at their typical varietal date. In the following year, new frigo plants would have to be ordered or produced for a strawberry harvest in late summer and autumn.

When should you plant frigo strawberries?

Basically, you can plant frigo strawberries year round to harvest the same variety year round. Because the frigos are more expensive than normal strawberry plants, they are usually only planted from the beginning of May to the beginning of July. The time at the beginning of the year can be filled with the early to late varieties of strawberries.

The right place for frigo plants of strawberries

Like other strawberries, the frigo strawberries love a sunny location without much wind. The location should not be exposed to severe frosts in winter. As an alternative to a frost-protected location, the plants can also be covered with leaves in autumn.
A perfect strawberry soil is humus and loose. Sandy or clayey soils should be improved with compost or potting soil before planting. In particular, waterlogged soils - i.e. heavy clay and loam soils - cause problems with strawberries. It can be worthwhile to build dams on such soil in which the strawberries grow southward.

Planting instructions for frigo strawberries

Because Frigo strawberries are delivered bare-rooted, planting is a little more difficult than planting normal pots. It is important to pay attention to the correct position of the roots and the correct height.

• Plan a distance of 25 to 30 cm for the strawberries.
• Every plant needs a planting hole that is at least as deep as the length of the plant's roots.
• In poor soils, some potting compost can be added to the hole. We recommend a soil with reduced nitrogen and increased phosphate content such as ours Plantura organic tomato and vegetable soil. It promotes the flowering and fruiting of the strawberries.
• Cut off the root tips of the strawberry to encourage branching.
• Place the strawberry in such a way that the roots hang straight down and the "crown", i.e. the green bud of the plant, is just above the ground. Then the hole is filled with earth.
• Spread a mainly organic fertilizer like ours between the plants Plantura organic tomato fertilizer and work it in easily. Between the strawberries should be mulched with straw or other dry material. This ensures that the soil holds moisture better and you can harvest clean strawberries.
• The freshly planted strawberries are then vigorously watered.

Maintaining frigo strawberry plants: this is what you should be aware of

Frigo strawberry plants are and will remain completely normal strawberries - the trick described above just messed up their internal clock. For further care, you should bear in mind that the bare-root frigo strawberries initially need a lot of water in order not to thirst and also to be able to absorb nutrients well.
It also makes sense five weeks after planting again with an organic liquid fertilizer - like ours Plantura organic tomato & vegetable fertilizer - to re-fertilize. This ensures that your strawberry plants are well supplied with potassium and phosphorus in order to produce large and healthy fruits. Everything else about Care of strawberries you can find out in our overview article.

Harvesting frigo strawberries

The following applies to frigos: Harvesting takes place around 8 to 10 weeks after planting. So if you plant new frigo strawberry plants every two weeks in spring and summer, you can harvest continuously later.
It is important to really remove all ripe fruits, even if some of them may have been eaten by insects or snails or have become moldy. Because bad strawberries in the field very quickly infect other strawberries. This is how you can save the harvest, especially if there are also weather conditions that favor fungal pathogens. You can find out everything else that is important in our relevant article on the subject Harvest and store strawberries.

Store frigo strawberry plants

Can or must you store frigo strawberry plants? The answer to this question is a resounding no. Because frigos are "just" normal strawberries that come through the winter just like other strawberries. The leaves are cut down and removed after harvest to prevent the spread of fungal diseases. The following year can then be harvested again. However, then of course all the strawberries on all the plants will be ripe at the same time, so you should be prepared for the strawberries to be boiled down and preserved. We have everything for you again Overwintering and cutting strawberries summarized.

Tip: You can also try making frigo strawberries yourself. To do this, you take plants from the bed in November or December, remove all leaves except for the bud in the center and roughly clean the plant. Then it is important to dry the plants as well as possible. Then freeze as many plants in a freezer bag as you want to plant out as a set in the coming year. When storing your frigo strawberries, do not do so below -1 ° C in the freezer to avoid damaging the plants.

Strawberries should not be missing in any snack garden! But other berry and fruit trees as well as vegetables can easily be grown for direct consumption in the garden. You can find more about this in our special article on Creating a snack garden for young and old.