Growing strawberries in pots or planters are easy, fun, and very rewarding. You would be surprised at just how many berries you can harvest over a single season with the right container and conditions. Whether you prefer traditional strawberry pots or purpose-designed tower planters, you can crop enough tasty strawberries to see you through a whole season.
I have tried just about every method, from raised, beds to hanging planters. So, I have set out the most productive methods here and shared a list of the best strawberry planters I have used to cover every situation.
Table Of Contents
- Best Verticle Strawberry Planter
- Best Tiered Tower Planter
- Strawberry Planters
- Strawberry Pots
- Tiered Strawberry Towers
- Hanging Strawberry Planter
- Vertical Strawberry Containers
- 1. Five-Tiered Vertical Strawberry Planter
- 2. Garden Tower Project Ecosystem
- 3. BloemBagz Strawberry Planter, 9 Gallon
- 4. Amazing Creation Stackable Vertical Strawberry Planter
- 5. Mr. Stacky 5-Tier Strawberry Tower Planters, 5 Pots
- 6. Wall Mounted Vertical Hanging Strawberry Planter
- 7. Gardenesque Glazed Ceramic Strawberry Pot 12"
- 8. Large Terracotta Strawberry Pot, 32cm tall
- 9. Architec Strawberry Tower Planter (3pk)
- 10. Nutley's Hanging Strawberry Planters
- How Much Sun Do Strawberries Need?
- Best Soil For Strawberries
- Best Time to Plant Strawberries in Pots
- Best Verticle Strawberry Planter
- Best Tiered Tower Planter
Best Verticle Strawberry Planter
Five-Tiered Vertical Strawberry Planter
High-quality 5 tray verticle strawberry planter. 29″ x 24″ footprint, stands 48″ tall, and holds 15 plants. Perfect against a wall.
Best Tiered Tower Planter
Garden Tower Project Ecosystem
Innovative vermiculture rotating tower. Add kitchen waste and let worms turn it into worm castings. 43″ x 23″ holds 50 plants.
Strawberries can be grown successfully in the traditional way in the ground, or in a grow bag. But there are many more ways that you can enjoy growing strawberries and other summer fruits. Such as raised beds, strawberry pots, vertical gardens, or hanging planters.
This opens up strawberry growing to everyone, whether you have a large garden at home, or small balcony space. It’s now even possible to grow them indoors thanks to the innovative rotating planters on the market.
Just bear in mind that the key to growing deliciously sweet and juicy strawberries successfully in containers is a good amount of nutritious soil and plenty of light. In fact, the more sunlight the better helping to produce sweet red fruits.
Types of Strawberry Planters
When deciding what type of strawberry planter to buy it’s crucial you know how much space you have to work with, and whether you want to showcase your strawberries or need a functional container for the job.
If space is limited, then you should consider a strawberry tower that stands vertically and saves precious floor space. Or take a look at wall hangers to use up that south-facing outbuilding wall. To help you familiarize yourself with the possibilities let’s run down the different types of strawberry planters.
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Strawberry Planters
A classic strawberry planter is an upright container with an open-top and multiple large openings around the sides. The basic principle behind this design is to allow the maximum number of plants to be grown within a single pot.
Each plant grows and cascades down the side of the planter and ideally gets a suitable amount of sunlight in the process.
Using a traditional strawberry planter gave the grower a number of advantages:
- The high number of plants per pot and therefore high fruit yield
- Keeping the fruit off the ground safe from slugs and snails
- Improving airflow, therefore, preventing the fruit rotting from resting on wet soil
Strawberry planters offer your plants great growing conditions and provide you with flexibility. Not to mention the possibility of growing a crop in a container, when perhaps a garden border or plot may not be available for those of us who live in apartments or have hardscaping.
Strawberry Pots
Growing in ceramic or terracotta strawberry pots has many of the same advantages as growing in planters. In keeping the crop off the ground and maximizing the yield for the pot size.
Given the smaller size of a strawberry pot over a planter, they are often preferred for use on patios, balconies, or where you are more likely to wish to move the pot around. Typically pots are up to 12-inches tall and therefore easy to move around. Having said that, they hold fewer strawberries per pot than some of the alternative options available.
Tiered Strawberry Towers
A strawberry tower is a mobile solution to keep your plants raised off the ground and protected from pests. They use up a very small amount of floor space and can often be stacked vertically using a modular system.
The tower contains all the plant’s soil needs and it can easily be watered using drip irrigation or by hand from the top down. You can place the tower on your patio, in the garden, or in a decked area to save space and to add interest. These are also excellent options for anyone with limited mobility, as they stand tall and often sometimes rotate for easy access to your plants.
Here at Yard and Garden, we are a family of strawberry lovers and definitely recommend growing these fruits in towers if you’re short of space. Some can accommodate up to 100 plants and are as tall as 7 feet! So there’s plenty to pick as soon as they’re ripe and some leftover to make delicious strawberry jam and compote.
Hanging Strawberry Planter
For those of us who have used up every possible growing space in our gardens or on our balcony, the hanging planter can open up a new way of fitting in a few more plants. You simply hang them from an overhead position or against a wall.
The great thing with hanging strawberry planters is the option to place them across south or west-facing walls to soak up the maximum amount of sunlight that the day has to offer. Allowing you to make great use of areas that otherwise would be useless, like an external outhouse wall, or shed.
You just need to be mindful of the water supply as strawberries and other fruits need plenty of water during the cropping season and many hanging planters can have pockets of soil that can be prone to dry out if neglected. So water frequently.
Vertical Strawberry Containers
Another great space-saving option. In fact one of the best options available to the strawberry grower. Perfect for preventing fruit rot, pest damage and maximizes the fruit yield from a relatively small floor space.
Vertical strawberry planters are popular fruit-growing systems for both indoor and outdoor growers. You can buy them with between 3 and 7 tiers or levels and on some models, you can rotate or move the individual planters within the vertical framework, which can prove handy at times.
10 Best Strawberry Container Reviews
There are many options and designs to consider and most of them will do a decent job. But I am interested in the best strawberry pots and planters and to help me determine this I have considered the following criteria; build quality, practical use of space per strawberry plant, aesthetic design, and how easy it is to access the planter for potting and cropping.
I have also taken into account thousands of user reviews across online retailers and gardening forums as well as my own experience of testing the products reviewed.
Pros
- Excellent build quality and suitable for outdoor or indoor use
- Great use of space only 29″ x 25″ of floor space required to grow 15 strawberry plants
- Planter troughs available in green, brown, or grey
Cons
- It not cheap, but you get what you pay for
If you’re looking for an effective way to use your growing space then a vertical strawberry planter is a great option. This model from Outland Living has a high-quality steel frame that was easy to assemble with a good paint finish to protect it from adverse weather conditions. Standing 48″ tall and 29″ wide the frame is simple to set up and light enough to move around with ease.
What sets this strawberry planter apart from other products is the excellent use of space. Within just 29″ x 25″ of floor space, you can grow a significant crop of strawberries in what is a very easy-to-access design. It basically provides you with 5 small raised beds where you can work from a standing position. Making it perfect for anyone short on garden space, or with limited mobility.
To get the best out of this product, my suggestion is to grow three different varieties, an early, full season, and a late fruiting variety to extend the cropping period. I also found a great tip is to drill small drainage holes in the bottom of each tray towards to front, and this allows water run-off into the tray below.
You can find the Verticle Strawberry Planter at Amazon.com
Customer reviews: hugely popular planter with great customer reviews. Everyone is impressed with the quality of the product and its diversity. Overall it scores 4.7/5 in customer ratings. I agree, it’s an awesome product and one I will be keeping for my own garden.
The planter troughs are made from durable molded plastic and measure 22 inches long, 8 inches wide and 6 inches high offering ample space for 3 plants per planter at 10-inch spacing. This will allow you to get a plant at each end to cascade over the edges, and one plant in the center. I managed to get 15 strawberry plants in this vertical garden which will yield a huge amount of fruit.
Pros
- Innovative central column for kitchen waste, allowing worms to compost directly to feed growing strawberrt plants
- Rotating stackable layers allowing you to plant from a single standing position
- Grow up to 50 individial strawberry plants in a single tower planter
- 5-Year manufacturer warranty
Cons
- This is a specialist planter that is purpose built for organic vermiculter so has a high upfront price
I was fascinated by the Garden Tower Project when I first set my eye’s on what these guys were doing. In summary…they have designed a rotating stackable tower planter, that has really impressive features and benefits. Most notable is the built-in central column, where you deposit your kitchen scraps, peelings, and other organic waste. Within the column, you add composting worms that are free to work their way throughout the planting system converting organic material into worm castings. This produces a super nutrient-rich food source for your plants.
The Future Vertical Composting Patio Farm: The Garden Tower
The tower stands 43-inches tall and only 23-inches in diameter meaning you only require a 2-foot space to stand the planter, so it will fit into small spaces and each stackable shelf will rotate as you work, plant, or pick your crop. There are 50 planting spaces in the standard tower system which is by far the largest capacity of all of the planters I have trialed and coincidently in one of the smallest footprints.
The Garden Tower Project planter is perfect for anyone looking to get the most out of a limited amount of space. It can be used indoors or outdoors, on a balcony or in a greenhouse. There are a bunch of add-on products to support effective use of this system such as high-quality caster wheels, allowing the tower to be pushed to different locations to follow the sun.
You can head over to the Garden Tower Project site and look into this item further and purchase the system for around $350.
Customer reviews: Fans of the Graden Tower Project recognize the innovation and scale at which crops can be produced under such as small footprint. This team has built a social following with users sharing their experiences and enjoyment of the system.
Pros
- Very durable 100% recycled materials
- Available in 8 funky colors; Olive, Graphite, Orange, Red, Burgundy, Brown, Lime, and Electric Blue
- Folds away out of season
- 18″ deep a real advantage for root development and good fruit yields
Cons
- Would have been nice to have carry handles
Measuring 18 inches tall and 14 inches wide this container will hold around 9-gallons of compost and has side pockets, so you will get 12 strawberry plants in each planter. Check out their full range of products which includes potato grow bags and general planter pots. This notable advantage you get with this planter over the traditional ceramic-type pots is the depth of the pot. With 18″ of growing depth for roots, you will achieve a greater yield over most of the other designs on my list.
Customer reviews: Customers found the product very durable and represent good value for money when considering the overall performance and build. The eco-conscious loved that it was manufactured with recycled materials.
Pros
- Ultra-small 12.5″ footprint, awesome use of floor space
- Neat 24″ stackable modules so you can choose the height
- Built-in rubber matt soil separators for water run-off
Cons
- No built in drainage holes, so need to take care with overwatering or drill some holes
Amazing Creation’s stackable planter is a neat design for the ultimate use of 12.5″ of floor space. This is a much smaller and basic version of the Garden Tower Project, with 5 stackable modules, each with a rubber soil filter tray allowing for water-run off in each module. This product does not have rotating layers or a central vermiculture system, and at full-stack, the unit measures 24 inches and will hold 15 strawberry plants.
It is small enough to have on a worktop or at waist height for each access. It’s perfect for anyone living in an apartment who longs to garden, or perhaps someone struggling with mobility and needing their micro garden on the countertop. There are so many scenarios where this product will suit a mini gardening experience.
The design is subtle enough to fit in anywhere, with no harsh colors just this organic form in shell color. Well worth a look. Individual modules can also be hung if that works for you.
Customer reviews: hundred of positive reviews across the internet for this product. It seems to hit the sweet spot for customers looking for this easy access function from their planters. Check Amazing Creation’s latest price on Amazon
Pros
- Space-saving at its best with a 12″ footprint, 28″ tall
- Easy to assemble, just stack them up
- Available in four different colors brown, black, white, and green
Cons
- Must be stood on a solid level surface for stability. E.g. decking or patio
Mr Stacky’s 5-tiered vertical strawberry tower from Amazon.com is the ultimate space saver with a 12″ wide footprint and standing at 28″ tall it will hold up to 20 strawberry plants. The modular design is no-nonsense and effective with each plant cell growing at interval spacings to the one above or below providing the best use of the available space when cascading. Basically, this prevents the plants from overlapping and exposing them to all of the available sunlight.
Each tier is detachable and has sufficiently sized drainage holes at the bottom. When ready to pot, click each tier on top of one another to create the stack. When the stack is filled with plants it’s easy to water from the top. The flow will naturally flow downwards to reach all of the plants in the stack. It comes complete with a bottom saucer to collect excess run-off water.
Customer reviews: due to the stackable design this planter allows for a very large crop. Very easy to set up and lightweight. Must to positioned on firm flat ground to avoid blowing over during heavy wind if all 4 modules are stacked
Pros
- A tidy solution when pots and ground-level planting is not an option
- Good at retaining water for longer due to felted fabric
- Washable and reusable year after year
Cons
- Excess water will drip on the ground below and over-watering can cause plants and soil to be washed out
This is the perfect solution when you can’t grow from the bottom up and you don’t have space for pots or ground-level planters. Simply fix this vertical hanging planter to a sunny wall, fill the pouches with soil and strawberry plants, water regularly and watch your plants flourish.
The felt pouches of this fabric garden planter mean that excess water drains away whilst still remaining damp enough to keep the soil moist for longer. The non-woven fabric is also breathable which encourages healthy, well-ventilated roots and soil that retains goodness for longer.
Measuring 40 inches in height and 12 inches wide, this clever design features eyelets at the top and bottom to make hanging from a wall neat and tidy. The planters each have 7 pouches that expand to 4.3 inches, making planting simple.
Buy Wall Mounted Planter online here.
Customer reviews: This is neat, tidy, and high-functioning gardening at its best. The planters can be fixed to the wall either indoors or out. Just be careful when watering as you may need to place something underneath to catch the drips and save your floor from water damage.
Pros
- Elegant classic Mediterranean design
- Available in three beautiful colors, Olive, Smoke Grey, and Cream
Cons
- Only available in UK outlets
If you’re looking for a modern twist on the traditional strawberry pot then this very attractive glazed ceramic pot may be interesting to you. I have a couple of these on my patio area next to my outside seating area and they look great. They also double up as a great herb planter if you want to grow a variety of plants in one small container.
Measuring 10-inches tall it’s small, but still has room for 6-8 plants and brings that very elegant classic Mediterranean look and feel. There is a drainage hole in the bottom of the pot as you would expect, but I would still recommend you put some gravel or broken ceramics in the bottom to assist drainage and allow air around the roots. Check Gardeneque price here.
Customer reviews: loved the design and style of this strawberry pot, great for use on a balcony or within smaller gardens
Pros
- Classic design, a really nice terracotta strawberry pot
- Available in three sizes 8″, 10″, 12″
Cons
- Only available in UK stores
This terracotta strawberry pot is as traditional as you can get, but no less effective at producing a good yield of berries. From Sun Cakes in the UK this pot is available in three different sizes, 8″ (20cm), 10″ (24cm), and 12″ (30cm) and has 6 side apertures for planting. In total, you can accommodate around 8 strawberry plants in this pot. There’s a good-sized drainage hold in the base of the pot.
No list of strawberry pots would be complete without an unfinished natural terracotta product so here it is. Reminiscent of days gone by the pot would look perfect in a country-style garden or at the foot of a water feature.
Customer reviews: a great quality pot for all those customers looking for something traditional, scores 4.6/5. Check the Terracota Pot’s latest price here.
Pros
- Space-saving solution for gardening on a small scale
- Attractive design that holds up to 12 strawberry plants
Cons
- Plants need to be tightly packed together which may compromise overall yield
Here’s a neat idea if you just have a small space to grow strawberries. This attractive set of 3 cedarwood planting boxes will accommodate up to 12 strawberry plants at any one time. The planters stack neatly on top of each other and will create a beautiful cascade of strawberry plants during the growing season.
Decorative and functional, simply dig in nursery plants, strawberry runners, or plugs around the outside edge of the bottom two planters and fill the top planter. All that’s left to do is feed and water regularly and watch them grow.
Each container comes with a handy plastic tray that fits neatly inside to help with drainage. This is the perfect solution for small space gardening on a patio or balcony or even in a sunny indoor space. Your overall yield may not be as high but you can grow a lot of strawberries on a very small footprint. Each container measures 12″ x 12″ square and 9″ high.
Customer reviews: these are a great space-saving but also decorative addition to any small outdoor space. Check Architec Strawberry Tower’s latest price here.
Pros
- Low cost vertical grow bags
- Offers a great opportunity to use wall space to grow your strawberries
- Easy to clean and fold away for storage over winter
Cons
- May not be durable enough to withstand multiple growing seasons
Another space saver, this time by US brand Nutleys. This stacked planter bag has the capacity for 16 strawberry plants and measures 45cm by 19cm. It will need to be suspended to get the best out of its design. Ideal for brightening up a small patio, balcony, or garden area. You’ll need a hook and some sunshine to bring your strawberry plants to life.
It’s made from polyethylene and has been UV treated for long life making it perfect to fold up and store at the end of the growing season ready for next year. Nutleys available at Amazon.com
Customer reviews: this vertical planter bag is intended to be watered from the top down. Some reviewers felt that water did not sufficiently drain down to the bottom plants leaving some subject to drought. They also felt that the plastic was not as durable as other vertical grow bag materials and therefore may only be suitable for one growing season.
10 Best Potato Grow Bags and Easy Harvest Planters
How To Grow Strawberries In Pots
One of the most important things to remember when growing any fruit is the plant will need lots of water during the fruiting stage. Water the soil whenever it dries out. When watering, try not to wet the foliage as this will make the plant susceptible to fungal diseases. Simply lift the leaves and water directly onto the soil or compost.
As soon as the first flowers appear, your strawberry plants will appreciate a regular feeding of high-potash liquid strawberry fertilizer. After fruiting is over, cut back the overgrown foliage, but leave the young runners intact.
How Much Sun Do Strawberries Need?
Your strawberry pot or planter will need to be in a location where it can receive at least 6-8 hours of sun every day. If you’re growing these plants in hanging baskets, be sure to keep them protected from gusts of wind.
Best Soil For Strawberries
Container-grown strawberries need well-drained soil. These plants prefer slightly acidic soil with a pH level of between 5.5 and 6.8. If you have tested your soil and it is more alkaline than acidic, we recommend filling the pot with a 50-50 blend of compost and potting mix. To improve drainage and make the soil more fertile, rake some clay soil into the mix and add a 1-inch layer of well-rotted manure.
Best Time to Plant Strawberries in Pots
Strawberries are best planted in the spring once the frost has passed. Since the potting soil in a strawberry pot warms up quickly in direct sun, you can begin the planting as early as March, but make sure you move the pot indoors temporarily if frosts are predicted.
How To Plant A Strawberry Pot: Step by Step
Strawberry pots and towers require a special planting technique that all beginner growers should know about. The good news is, the planting technique is very easy to master and once you get the hang of it, your strawberry pot will get better looking throughout the growing season.
Planting in a strawberry pot is a little different from planting in a typical container. Follow these 9 steps to help you plant your strawberries in a traditional strawberry pot or tower:
Step 1
You’ll need a watering column to maintain the proper moisture level of the strawberry pot. This column can be made from a PVC pipe so if you have an old gutter lying about in your shed, just drill some holes every 2 inches along its sides and cut it slightly longer than the pot’s height.
Step 2
If you’re using a terracotta pot, be sure to lay the pot in water for at least one hour before planting. Otherwise, the terracotta pots can absorb all the moisture from the soil and leave the plant high and dry.
Step 3
Loosely cover the drainage holes of the pot, place mesh or gravel over the pot’s holes. This will prevent the soil from washing out through the large openings.
Step 4
As you fill up the pot with soil, position the PVC water column so it doesn’t directly cover the drainage hole.
Step 5
Now place the strawberry plants into the lowest pockets and make certain the plant’s crown is above the soil level.
Step 6
The next level of side pockets should now be filled with more potting soil in the same manner as before. Repeat this process until you’ve filled all the pockets with the strawberry plants.
Step 7
The pot needs to be filled with potting soil up to 4 inches below the rim. The top opening can be planted with 3 or 4 strawberry plants, but no more than that.
Step 8
After planting the strawberries in the pot, slowly pour water down the PVC column. Take care not to dislodge the plant’s roots during watering.
Step 9
Turn the pot every few days to ensure your newly planted strawberries get equal exposure to the sun.
Strawberry Planter Material
The planter material and construction of your planter may not seem an important consideration, but it may well affect how often and how much you need to water your plants, specialty during the fruiting period.
For example, a pot without drainage holes will cause soil saturation and adversely affect the health of the plant, potentially causing root rot or leaving the plants prone to other diseases Therefore, when choosing a strawberry container, make sure the pot contains several good-sized drainage holes.
Some of the best planter materials include:
Heavy Duty Fabric Bags and Planters
Thick non-woven fabric is hard-wearing, breathable, and helps the soil to retain heat. It’s also water permeable and therefore good for drainage and excellent for preventing root rot. Fabric bags and containers are lightweight and often come with handles to make them easily portable.
They are often available to buy with pockets that allow for stackable planting. Super convenient, they fold away for easy storage ready for use the next growing season. They are also more environmentally friendly than plastic containers of plastic growing bags.
Heavy Duty Plastic Planters and Bags
Similar in design, shape, and size to the fabric bags mentioned above, heavy-duty plastic planters and bags are also lightweight and can come with handles making them a good choice if you need to move them around your outdoor space.
They are often available to buy in vibrant colors that can add interest to your outdoor space. They can also come with multiple planting pockets that will enable you to stack-grow more plants and make the best use of smaller spaces.
Similar to the fabric bags they are easy to fold away and store outside of the strawberry growing season. My personal preference would be to use fabric bags over plastic. Fabric offers better aeration for the roots and avoids rot.
terracotta strawberry pot
Clay-based terracotta pots are usually brownish-orange in color and relatively inexpensive. These attractive pots last for many years if properly maintained. When growing strawberries in terracotta pots, you’ll need to water them more frequently because of the porous nature of the pot.
Unglazed terracotta pots tend to suck up the soil’s moisture, which helps prevent root rot, but you must water the soil more often.
Glazed terracotta pots, on the other hand, are more decorative and can also be used as vertical planters just like plastic pots. The only downside to these pots is their added weight; if you drop them, obviously they are prone to shatter.
Ceramic Strawberry Pot
Just like terracotta pots, ceramic strawberry pots are heavy and very attractive. The main difference between the two materials is that ceramic pots can retain water, making them a better choice for growing strawberry plants. These pots come in various sizes, shapes, and colors, and are likely to cost more than terracotta pots.
When buying ceramic strawberry pots, make sure you select those with adequate drainage holes on the bottom so as to avoid root rot.
Plastic Strawberry Containers
For a less expensive option, consider plastic strawberry containers. These lightweight pots can easily be moved around making them a good choice if the sun reaches different parts of your garden throughout the day.
Bear in mind that plastic can easily topple over if filled with lightweight soil. To avoid this, fill the bottom with some pebbles for added stability.
Plastic containers retain moisture much better than terracotta and ceramic pots, but your selection will probably come down to cost and aesthetics.
Best Strawberry Pots and Planters: Verdict
Growing strawberries in pots, planters, towers, or bags are easy and fun. If you have never grown strawberries before then try them out using one of the containers we have tested. Trust me when I say there is not much to compete with the taste of a warm sweet strawberry straight off the plant on a late summers day
Best Verticle Strawberry Planter
Five-Tiered Vertical Strawberry Planter
High-quality 5 tray verticle strawberry planter. 29″ x 24″ footprint, stands 48″ tall, and holds 15 plants. Perfect against a wall.
Best Tiered Tower Planter
Garden Tower Project Ecosystem
Innovative vermiculture rotating tower. Add kitchen waste and let worms turn it into worm castings. 43″ x 23″ holds 50 plants.
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