With every strawberry you are holding more than 100 seeds. If you can resist the tempting indulgence, the nuts are easy to harvest and sow. Familiarize yourself with the procedure here.
Harvesting strawberry seeds made easy
Strawberries are among the nuts, specifically among the aggregate fruits. Thus, the seeds with their hard shell are located directly on the outer skin of the juicy, red flower base. This starting position makes seed harvesting easier, as the following sequence shows:
- Halve a fully colored strawberry
- place on newspaper cut-side down to dry
- collect the seeds from the dried strawberry
If there are still nuts on the outer shell, scrape them off with the blunt side of the kitchen knife. Until the date of sowing, keep the seeds in a dark, dry container.
How to sow strawberry seeds
The ideal time window for sowing is from mid-February to early March. At an earlier stage, the seedlings tend to wilt due to the lack of light. Later sowing results in a postponement of the first harvest time to next year. Sow the seeds like this:
- Soak seeds in water for 4-6 hours
- Fill the seed tray with lean potting soil
- Scatter the seeds, press down and sieve over a maximum of 3 mm
- sprinkle with collected rainwater
- put on a piece of transparent film or a pane of glass
Place the seed pot in light but not in full sun. The ideal germination temperature is 16-18 degrees Celsius. Under optimal conditions, germination will begin within 2-6 weeks, depending on the strawberry variety chosen. Prick out the seedlings from a height of approx. 2 centimeters in lightly fertilized substrate. From a growth height of 4-5 centimetres, plant the youngsters in the bed or in the flower box.
tips and tricks
You can significantly improve the chances of success for growing strawberries from seed with a seed helper. Vermiculite has proven to be an excellent seeding aid. The natural silicate is germ-free, stores plenty of water and protects the seeds from sunburn. The germinating seeds are not affected by the small plates.