Question: A local store is selling strawberry pots already filled with strawberry plants. I was wondering how to take care of them, and if this is a good way to grow plants? How long will I get strawberries?

Answer: Strawberry pots can be a great way to grow strawberries, herbs, small bulbs and small annual flowering plants. A strawberry pot is a flower pot usually less than two feet tall that has holes around the sides where additional plants are planted. They can be made from clay or ceramic pottery, plastic, and even wood.

Strawberry pots allow several plants to be planted in a very small area. They often have six to eight holes, so you can plant six different kinds of herbs in one small spot. They can be placed on a patio or balcony, so anyone can grow herbs and strawberries just about anywhere. Be sure to get plants that have similar requirements for light and watering. Use small growing species like parsley, thyme, chives, pansy, nasturtium and viola, the last three have beautiful flowers that are also edible. Avoid invasive plants like mint that will send up new sprouts in all the other openings in the pot.

If you fill the pot with new sterile soil, you won't have any weeding to do and the plant roots may have fewer disease problems. Most potting soil has some fertilizer, but you will probably need to fertilize the plants by mid-summer.

Strawberries are often planted in these pots because they are small plants with a shallow root system, so each plant doesn't compete with the others for water. The fruit will often turn out better as well, since they are not growing on the ground where they are susceptible to bacterial and fungal disease problems. Strawberries can be planted in the pots in areas of the country that can't grow them successfully in the ground. In these areas, the plants are replaced each spring.

All it takes to plant one of these layered pots is to cover the bottom hole with a piece of screen or cloth that will let the water out, but not the soil. Never add a layer of gravel in the bottom of the pot. It does not increase drainage. In fact, it slows the drainage in the bottom layer of soil. Fill the pot to the bottom of the first set of side holes. Stick the roots through the hole and spread them out by reaching into the pot from the top. Next, add more soil up to the next holes and repeat until you can plant a few in the top. You can cut a piece of cloth or weed barrier fabric slightly bigger than the side hole in the pot. Cut a slit for the plant and wrap the fabric around the stem so that the cloth keeps the soil from washing out of the hole. If you replace the plants, you should replace at least half the soil, if not all of it.

To make it easier to water every plant in the pot without over watering the top plants and under watering the bottom ones, you can insert a pipe in the pot before adding the soil. You can use any type of pipe and all you do is drill holes in it to have water seep out at all levels.

It used to be that strawberries were only available in the spring, but now there are strawberry plants that don't stop producing flowers and fruit all summer long. They are everbearing and they make the best varieties for strawberry pots. Tillicum, Ozark Beauty and Quinalult are good everbearing varieties. It takes about four plants per person to have enough berries, so you may need more than one pot. If the pot is in a cool protected location over the winter, so that the plants and soil in the pot don't dry out, the strawberry plans could last several years before you would need to replace them.

I have used a modern version of the strawberry pot called a Stack A Pot. It is a series of trays that each holds three plants. They can be stacked to create a column and they come in a variety of diameters. They have several advantages over the old style pot. I can take off a tray and easily reach the soil and plants on that layer to replace them, and then I can change the order of the stacks.

Email questions to Jeff Rugg at info@greenerview.com. To find out more about Jeff Rugg and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.