They are a British staple, with millions of strawberries scoffed down every summer, usually with a side of tennis and cream.
But gardeners can get the jump on strawberry season by boosting their strawberry plants now and benefit from an early spring fruit haul. Strawberries, unlike tomatoes, don’t need to be replanted each year and will come back each spring and summer once established.
It means gardeners who look after their plants can often get much earlier crops than those who have to buy new each year. But one of the biggest barriers to fast-growing strawberries – apart from the relentless attack from slugs and snails – is another spring pest: aphids and whitefly.
Getting a handle on aphid infestations when they appear in spring can produce great results. That’s because aphids can cripple strawberries. They take away their key nutrition, reducing their ability to grow and to fruit.
Strawberry plants impacted by aphids will often show small, deformed fruits and sickly looking leaves and can be late to bloom at all. What’s worse, these aphids often spread diseases which can also kill or damage strawberry plants, too.
According to HortSense.edu: “Infested plants may be stunted, and leaves may be crinkled and deformed. Feeding aphids produce large amounts of honeydew, a sweet, sticky material which may attract honeydew-feeding ants or become covered with a dark growth of sooty mold. Honeydew and sooty mold can reduce the quality of fruit. Aphids can also transmit several virus diseases of strawberry.”
This is backed by garden pest experts Koppert, who say: “Direct damage is caused by the aphids sucking sap from the plant, which reduces the yield and quality of fruit. The leaves do not become distorted but leaves and fruits quickly become sticky due to the honeydew the aphids excrete. Black sooty mould fungi grow on the honeydew. The strawberry aphid is an important vector of several plant viruses affecting strawberries.”
The best way to get rid of aphids and infestations is to use a soap spray, rather than chemical control. This is for two reasons: one, chemicals are not 100% effective against whitefly and aphids, which are very hardy. And two, chemical controls can kill everything, both beneficial and harmful, such as bees, wasps, butterflies and spiders – all things which you actually want to keep alive as they are important pollinators or pest control.
To make a soap spray, simply find an old spray bottle and fill it with a mixture of tap water and dish soap (such as washing up liquid) and spray it directly onto the whitefly or aphids. The soap kills them instantly.
Once pests are removed, you can then keep feeding your strawberries with plant food and you’ll get big, delicious fruits not marred by infestations.
