Strawberries in blue plastic barrels

[Kbeitz]

I've done this with tomato plants. My only advise is to add baby diapers in your dirt. If you don't and miss a day putting water to them they will die. I put pepper plants in the top.

(Image hidden from quote, click to view.)

(Image hidden from quote, click to view.)

New or second hand? recycling and fertilizing in one step.

New without the plastic.  The stuffing inside holds water really good. Keeps thing from drying out.

[ljohnsaw]

My daughter buys the "water gels" and you mix in a few of the granules into the potting mix.  She will also dump some in a 2 liter soda bottle and put a small hole in the lid.  Fill with water and invert into the soil of a plant.  In the heat here, it helps keep the plants good for a couple days.  Not so sure what the benefit of the gels are in the bottles, tho.

But, her way of thinking is a little is good, a lot is better.   I don't know how much she put in but when the rains came, the dirt (the gels) expanded and there was a column of dirt about 2" above the top of the pots!  What a mess

[maple flats]

While we don't have strawberries in barrels, my wife got tired of mowing the front lawn. 2-3 years ago she started growing strawberries and veggies along side the driveways. We live in a nice residential neighborhood in one side of a duplex, we rent out the other side. Each side has about a 60' blacktop driveway. My wife has a full length row of strawberries along each driveway. One side is June bearers the other is day neutral berries. Last year she got 225 pints off those plants, about 30% off the June bearers and the rest off the day neutral berries.
When my wife was first going to plant the front yard, our 2 grown daughters argued against the plan, but you'd be surprised just how many passers by stop and make nice comments. I don't think we ever got a bad comment on them. In addition, she had 1 tomato plant that grew to about 10' across and yielded several bushels of tomatoes. She also had a group of about 6-8 frying pepper plants that also yielded a whole bunch of peppers. While we gave some of the strawberries away, we ate lots and froze a whole bunch more. We also gave the local food pantry 3-4 bushel of tomatoes and almost that many peppers last year.
Looking this year, the side with the June bearers is loaded about a ft. in from the blacktop with blossoms and the day neutral ones have lots of blossoms but not like the June bearers at the edge of the blacktop. The June bearers are on the north side of an east west driveway, so the sun reflects heat off the driveway and coaxes the heavy production.

[mometal77]

Strawberry, Mara Des Bois are the best I think. Also look into Tayberry. Cross from a Raspberry/Blackberry.