Quote Originally Posted by davidstcldfl
Has anyone else in FL tried growing it, whether in AP or soil...?
I thought I read that in FL, you can grow it, but it dies out in a year or two.
We planted 2 year old roots of a Jersey Hybrid all-male variety about 2 years ago. Planted 20 of them in a 1'x4'x8'raised soil bed. The first year we let them all fern, although it was very tempting to "rob" a few, we resisted. This year, we have been harvesting a couple every other 3 days or so. We just put the cuttings in a cup of water in the fridge until we have enough for dinner. We let some of each root fern as well, while trimming off the delicious ones. They seem to be doing wonderful. I have automatic water and 20-20-20 liquid fertilizer in the morning, around 8 am, then just water once more around 2 pm.
This variety was suppose to be all male, but most seem to be female, I get tons of seeds, which is great for me. I let the seeds turn red on the fern, then pick. I plant the seeds in seed trays and let the ferns sprout. Each berry has 3-5 seeds inside, but I just plant 1 berry per cell, I tried squishing the berries and planting 1 seed at a time and that failed. In about 6 months to a year (depending on root size), I give the transplants away. It does take awhile for the seeds to sprout, not sure what triggers it, but out of a 50 cell tray, All 50 cells had ferns.... Once, my watering system got clogged and the center of the tray dried up and died, but with the surviving cells, I was able to give about 30 large roots away, and had enough smaller roots to replant the whole 50 cell tray. Now I await the little roots to send up ferns.
As for my original bed, they all look great. Perhaps nematodes or some other critter kills the roots, or someone planted the wrong variety for Florida? I use last years potting soil left over from my strawberry breeder friends. I heard nematodes do not like rich soil, so maybe this keeps them away? Anyway, ours are thriving.