Growing strawberry plants from seeds in Singapore

On 15 August 2014, I bought some strawberries from the supermarket in Singapore. I couldn't remember the origins of the strawberries. I'm thinking they were from Australia. I removed the seeds from the exterior of the strawberries. I took the seeds that are brown in colour and scrapped them away from the skin using a sharp knife. I tried to remove as much fleshes from the seeds as possible so that it would rot in my sowing bed. I took a used plastic sushi container and filled it with potting soil. Buried the seeds in the soil and kept the soil moist. I closed the container with a rubber band and this helped to keep the moisture inside the container. I estimated that there were about 100 seeds.

It was almost 2 months later that I saw the seeds germinated. Tiny seedlings started emerging out of the soil bed. It started with 5 seedlings, then a few days later, another 5 seedlings. After that, none appeared. I "ploughed" the sowing bed and exposed the seeds again. Watered the bed and kept it moist. A couple of weeks later, new seedlings germinated. I got another 15 seedlings. So in total I have 25 seedlings. Recently, on 12 December 2014, I noticed 3 new seedlings started to germinate. It is almost 4 months since I last sowed the seeds. My advice to you will be to be very patient when you want to grow strawberry plant from seed. It can take from two months to four months to get the seedling. So, try to sow more seeds, at least 100 seeds. My success rate is not 28%.

The seedlings need a lot of water and sunlight. The seeds germinate faster if they are exposed to sunlight. The seedlings also grow well in direct sunlight.

From November onwards, my window sill is not getting any direct sunlight. I need to bring the plants to the corridor area which is very troublesome. So, in the end, I decided to do an experiment to see whether the seedlings need sunlight. I brought 5 seedlings to my office where they can get at least 4 hours of direct sunlight. I'm trying to monitor their progress.



5 strawberry seedlings on 5 Dec 2014

Last weekend, I had forgotten to bring the container into the shelter. It was raining heavily on Saturday and the seedlings were flooded. Below is the photo of the seedlings after the flood.



Seedlings on 16 Dec 2014

Recently, I chanced upon a post from www.igardenplanting.com and gotten the permission from Dianne to share her post on my blog. It is "How To Grow Strawberries and 10 Best Strawberry Recipes".