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Unboxing and Caring for Your Strawberry & Raspberry Fruit Plants
Hi, my name is Ben. I'm a Product Manager here at Johnny's Selected Seeds. Today we're going to talk about what to do when you receive your fruit plants and how best to care for them until you can get them in the ground.
Open Immediately
Immediately after receiving them, you want to open the box and check everything. Here we have strawberry plants. Our strawberry plants come as bare root live plants. That means there's usually not any soil or other type of debris and very minimal foliage. The plants are shipped dormant, which means they're kind of in a sleep-like state, and that's to keep them from growing and rotting during the transit process.
Check for Mold
The first thing you want to do is check the plants from mold. If you have any quality issues whatsoever, please give us a call. We'll be happy to help.
Holding Strawberry Plants
It's best to transplant them as soon as possible, but if you have to hold them over for a little bit and you can't transplant them right away, the best thing to do is to remove them from the rubber band. Then get some sort of tray with drainage. Here we have a deep bottom tray with drainage. Then just spread them out a little bit to give them some air. If they're clumped too tightly together, then moisture can become trapped and cause mold and rot, which we don't want prior to planting. Once you've spaced them all out, given them some airflow, you want to put them somewhere cool, right around fridge temperatures, and mist them from time to time to keep them from drying out. They'll be good in the fridge for about a week until you're able to plant them.
Holding Raspberry Plants
Now, we're going to talk about our raspberry plants. Our raspberry plants arrive in two different forms. The first form, all of our red raspberry plants come in bare root canes. These plants are 12 to 18 months old and arrive with a vigorous, healthy root system. The sooner you get these in the ground, the sooner they'll leaf out and start to grow vigorously throughout the season. First thing you want to do when you received your bare root canes is to open the liner and check to see if the shipping media, in this case shredded newspaper, is nice and moist. If not, just give it a little bit of a mist and plant them as soon as possible. If you can't plant them immediately after receiving them, then return them to the liner. Make sure that they're moist and then put them back in the container that you receive them in and try to store them between 32 and 40°F (0 to 4°C) if possible. Refrigerator temps are perfect. You can store them for about a week until you should really get them in the ground.
Next, we'll talk about our other types of raspberries. Generally speaking, black raspberries, purple raspberries, and golden raspberries will arrive in greenhouse grown plug-sized transplants. Sometimes they'll have foliage. Other times, like this, they won't have much foliage at all. These are dormant plants. And while they look kind of sad, they're actually very healthy and ready to grow. So, the first thing you want to do when you receive your plugs is to open the liner and check to see the moisture level. These are quite moist and they're perfect to plant right away. If you can't plant them right away, then you want to return them to the liner, keeping the top open so that you can encourage good air flow and put them in a well-lit area. You don't want to put them in a refrigerator because the young foliage that is starting to grow is susceptible to mold and refrigerator temperatures can encourage mold on new foliage. You can return them then to your box and you can store them for about a week.
Thank you for joining me today. I hope you have a wonderful growing season and a bountiful harvest.
Learn more about Raspberry Production
Learn more about Strawberry Production
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