Too late to remove strawberry plant leaves?

[HawfinchParticipant]

Hi,
we’ve had a terribly wet summer and my strawberry plants are all infected with leaf spot. Is it best to remove the leaves now so they don’t infect new growth in spring or is it better for the plants to leave them over winter?
It probably would have been much better to remove the leaves in summer, but with all the other things that needed doing I didn’t get round to doing it.
Any advice would be much appreciated.

[KarenParticipant]

Hey Hawfinch,

I reckon you don’t have to worry too much about it as I am sure the plants have already developed strong roots over the season.

If in doubt, maybe you could prune half the batch and leave the other half alone and see if there is any significant difference when growth begins again next year.

I do sometimes remove the older dying and ´diseased´ leaves where time permits, or I usually just leave them be.

Our harvest has been great this far. I usually only keep the plants for 2 years and plant new in new locations again.

[charlesModerator]

Hawfinch, you had our rain! And its still dry here.
Karen’s idea is good.
With a sharp knife, it does not take long to cut all the leaves off in July, after fruiting, make a note for next year. The new leaves are healthier.

[HawfinchParticipant]

Thank you for the advice. I’ll try Karen’s suggestion and cut half of the plants now. And remember to do it in July next year!

We did have a very wet summer, but have hardly had any rain since eariy August so it’s already extremely dry here again.

Karen, might I ask where in Germany you are? I’m just outside Zürich in Switzerland.

[KarenParticipant]

Think you ´stole´ all our rain too! 🙂 We didn’t have any at all from mid Aug right through in the month of September. And it also appeared that there was rain all over Germany except in our region.

We are right smack in the middle of the Spreewald (Spree Forest), about 100km from Berlin. We are very privileged and fortunate to live in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

I kinda assumed you were also living in the UK… the internet has definitely brought the world a whole lot closer 🙂

[HawfinchParticipant]

Ah Spreewald, must be a lovely area, from what I’ve heard. I somehow thought you were in southern Germany 🙂

[KarenParticipant]

Nooooooooooooo…. the husband and I would definitely struggle to understand the Southerners (Bavarians)… they have a very strong and quite incomprehensible German slang.

We had a British couple (whom we stayed with in their B&B in Feb) who came to visit in Sept and stayed too in our B&B and they loved the Spreewald. They too were pleasantly surprised how ´magical´ (in their own words) the Spreewald was. We were really happy that they thoroughly enjoyed their visit. 🙂

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