By Dr. Mercola

Strawberries, a symbol of love, also have a lot to offer those passionate about their health. High in immune-boosting nutrients such as vitamin C, anthocyanins, ellagitannins, flavonols, terpenoids, phenolic and ellagic acids, strawberries help fight infections. They’re also packed with manganese and folate, potassium with its co-factoring enzyme, superoxide dismutase, and minerals like copper for the healthy development of red blood cells.

A culinary favorite and summer staple among people of all ages, strawberries are best grown at home, seeing how commercial strawberries are heavily contaminated with pesticides and the fact that there’s no guarantee that organic strawberries are truly organic when bought at the grocery store.

While an organic grower will not use chemical fumigants, the nurseries where the plants are started do. These plants are then sold to both conventional and organic growers, and despite their toxic start, they qualify for organic certification when harvested on an organic farm.^1,2

Grow Your Own Strawberries

Strawberries are easy to grow either in a garden bed, or in pots as small as 10 inches in diameter.³ Hanging planters provide the added advantage of keeping slugs and other critters away from the precious berries. When using a planter, make sure the pot drains well. Loam potting mix is recommended to ensure good drainage, and Day neutrals (see strawberry selections below) tend to be the best for container growing.

You can even grow strawberries in a reusable shopping bag — a $10 project that will take less than 20 minutes. All you need is six to eight plants, one unused reusable shopping tote, one 32-quart bag of organic potting mix, a bottle of organic tomato food, and a sturdy outdoor table. Rodale’s Organic Life provides the details.⁴

“[Cut] drainage holes in the bottom of your bag. Cut a horizontal slit about 2 inches long in the center of the bag’s front and … back. Next, cut similar slits in the two long sides of your bag … Make the first slit a few inches above the base and the second slit at least 6 inches above the first …

Now fill your bag with potting mix to the level of the lowest slits … Pick up the bag and thump it down firmly to settle the soil. Then, working from inside the bag, poke the leaves and the crown (the thick center section between the roots and the leaves) of one plant out through each slit and spread the roots out inside … continue filling the bag with potting mix up to the next level of slits, and repeat step 4.

Fill the remainder of your bag with potting mix to within 2 inches of the top … Spread out the roots of your last two plants on top of the mix, and cover the roots with mix, filling the bag within one-half inch of the top. Just make sure the crown of each plant is out of the potting mix and its roots are completely covered.

Water until the potting mix is evenly moist. Water every two or three days to keep the soil evenly moist … Rotate your bag 180 degrees every two to three days, so all the plants get sun exposure. Once a week, feed the plants with the organic fertilizer according to the label directions.”

Strawberry Selections

The three basic varieties of strawberry plants you can choose from are:

As a general rule, strawberry plants need between eight and 10 hours of sunlight during the day and well-draining soil with a pH between 5.8 and 6.2. In cooler climates, strawberries are best planted in early spring, while fall plantings are better in warmer areas like California and Florida.

If you’re rotating crops, which is a core strategy in organic gardening, avoid planting your strawberries in an area where you’ve previously grown raspberries, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplant — or previous batches of strawberries. This will cut down the risk of verticillium wilt.

General Planting Guide: Matted Rows System

There are two different ways to plant strawberries in your garden: matted rows and hills. Regardless of the method you choose, amend the soil before you start by working 1 to 2 inches of compost into the soil. June bearing plants, with their profusion of runners, work best in matted rows, which is done as follows:

General Planting Guide: Hill System

The hill system is best for Everbearing and Day neutral varieties as they do not send out a lot of runners. Here’s how:

Avoid Poison Berries by Growing Your Own

As mentioned, strawberries are ideally grown at home if you want to avoid toxic pesticides and other chemical exposures. Each year the Environmental Working Group (EWG) publishes a Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce,⁶ and this year, strawberries are at the top yet again. According to the EWG:

“California data show that in 2015, nearly 300 pounds of pesticides were applied to each acre of strawberries — an astonishing amount, compared to about 5 pounds of pesticides per acre of corn, which is considered a pesticide-intensive crop.”

Tests done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2015 and 2016 revealed an average of nearly eight different pesticides per strawberry sample, compared to just two for other produce. Ninety-nine percent of samples had detectable levels of at least one pesticide, and 1 in 5 samples had residues of 10 or more chemicals. The most contaminated sample had 22.

Combined, no less than 81 different pesticides were found in the samples, which came from growers in the U.S., Mexico and the Netherlands. Among the most hazardous of these pesticides are carbendazim, a hormone-disrupting fungicide linked to male reproductive damage, and bifenthrin, a pyrethroid insecticide classified as a possible human carcinogen.

Disturbingly, 40 of the 1,174 samples contained pesticides that are actually illegal for use on strawberries. Conventional strawberry growers also use large amounts of toxic fumigants to sterilize the ground before planting, and nurseries fumigate their soil as well. So, unless the organic grower is also starting their own seedlings, chances are they’ve purchased starter plants from a nursery that used fumigants.

So, if you buy organic strawberries, make sure the grower can guarantee the starter plants were purchased from an organic nursery, and is using crop rotation and anaerobic soil disinfestation⁷ — the organic alternative to soil fumigation for strawberries that allows the grower to control soil borne pathogens without the use of toxic fumigants.