What are your DIY ideas for strawberry planters? We have several strawberry planters in use in our garden. Some are terra cotta, wood and some are plastic.
One of our favorite homemade strawberry planters is an old log that our son hollowed out by burning. One is vertical strawberry planter and the other a large horizontal one.
Strawberry Urn We’ve Borrowed for Herbs & Tomatoes
Hollow Log Planter for Strawberries
My son made ours for us as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gifts. He burned out old logs that were already starting to hollow out.
If the wood was already very dry, he would just add some kerosene and light it carefully in an area of gravel driveway. He’d monitor it for a slow burn, and once it burned out, would scoop any mush and ash out and repeat the process of burning to carefully continue the hollowing out process.
If the log was a little on the green side, he’d lay twigs for kindling on the area to burn, add kerosene to that and light it, repeating that process once the twigs burned out if the greener wood wasn’t still burning.
In the end, he’d chisel, drill and scrape out any protruding areas or chunks that hadn’t burned out evenly. The end result are beautifully rustic natural log strawberry planters in both vertical and horizontal styles.
Of course these rustic log planters are great for whatever you might wish to plant in them and make great landscape features around stones and plants.
We adopted our son, Nikolai, from Russia. Home at age two, he’s a proud American of Koryak — Native Russian — descent. If you’re interested, you can read more about him in this tribute to my son, Nikolai Alderson.
We have more photos to add, but this is a start.
Faux Log and Real Wood Ideas for Strawberry Planters
If you don’t have access to your own logs for DIY Log Strawberry Planters, you can buy real or simulated log planters. Just be aware that real wood products are going to be heavier and likely entail a higher shipping price.
Alternately, you might be able to find local made rustic wood planters at your local farmers’ markets, flea markets and roadside stands. Or, you can get some nice looking faux wood log planters such as these:
Stackable Vertical Strawberry Planters and Towers
There are MANY varieties and brands of vertical planters these days, many of them stackable, making it easy to go from one tier up to 5 tiers or more.
First, a Word of Caution on Plant Towers
Tower planters need high sun or lots of rotation. For this reason, we’ve found they work better as outdoor planters—rotation is still needed—as there will always be some plants that are in the shadow of the tower… excepting perhaps at high noon.
So when you plant, if you’re planting something like lettuce, kale, and spinach, place these on the same side of the planter as these can take more shade than some of the others.
Plant towers indoors can also work with grow lights in winter, just make sure they’re overhead grow lights.
Plant Dollies
If you go for a stackable plant tower, it’s also recommended to purchase the stackable planters that include plant dollies on wheels.
Dollies facilitate moving the plants around, rotating for better light as needed, and cleaning under them. Or, you can purchase a separate plant dolly on wheels.
A few tweaks and plant towers can be awesome. When space is an issue, just grow up!
Stacking Planters – for Floor, Plant Stand, or to Hang
We’re growing strawberries in these stackable vertical planters. One advantage of these vertical planters is that they allow strawberries to grow without lying on the ground, especially if on a plant stand, dolly or hung.
Some of the stackable tiered planters come with hanging options. That could be a great option for a corner of a porch, balcony or deck. Just be careful of the weight for your hanging location and ability to lift it.
We tested a smaller and much more economical container garden with just 9 spaces for our microgreens for salads. It started out well but did not continue growing strong indoors with just window light. Then in spring we moved it outside, but again, the “shadowing effect” of the height of the tower just didn’t do as well as a flat bed area, in our experience.
Kale did the best of the microgreens we tried in the stackable planters.
Below is an image of our 3-tiered, 9-pot Nancy Jane Stacking Planter we got. There’s also have a taller one that’s 5-tiered for up to 15 plants.
We’re not going to hang ours, though they come equipped for that, so you could if that works best for your situation. We have ours out in the garden along with several of the other ideas for strawberry planters here.
Tractor Supply Stackable Planter
We love Tractor Supply and this is their popular vertical stacking planter which is great for strawberries.
Amazing stackable, self watering garden planter for vertical gardening, growing herbs, … [More]
Terra Cotta Strawberry Pots
These tallish urns look lovely in any setting, especially on decks, patio and balcony gardens. The plants drape down the sides from the open pockets or holes around the sides, which allow for placing multiple plants.
These planters are popular for growing strawberries and herbs. They come in authentic terra cotta clay pots as well as terra cotta simulated plastic pots that are much lighter in weight.
We had our strawberries in one of these but overall, we prefer planter style rather than the constriction of holes or pockets. But these definitely look cool and they do work.
However, we had ours in terra cotta strawberry planters in the garden and in one season our strawberries escaped the pots! They trailed down the side of the pots, (as they’re supposed to) but then they sent runners into the soil as they reached it.
The follow season, we had new strawberry plants in several spots around where the urns had been. So then we moved to the wood logs shown above.
Terra Cotta Pottery Planters
Plastic Terra Cotta Pottery Planters
The terra cotta planters that look like pottery are great because they’re attractive but much lighter in weight and they look better for longer. However, many people try to avoid plastic.
If that’s you, keep in mind that the real terra cotta pots will be heavier, which means heavier to move around your patio, balcony, deck or garden. Buy them from your local home store will save on expensive shipping.
Grow Bags for Strawberry Planters
While not the prettiest of planters, grow bags are popular for several reasons. Grow bags are lightweight and relative easy to move around. They can be emptied, rinsed or shaken of dirt, dried and flattened for easy storage over the winter.
Fabric grow bags are increasingly popular as an easy environmentally friendly growing solution that stores in less space.
Gutter Garden for Strawberries
A member of the GardensAll community, Migdalia Jolliffe, built a fantastic rain gutter garden for her strawberries.
They did great, produced well. She covered them with straw for overwintering in the gutters and they’re back and producing. However, she transplanted their babies to a raised bed and they’re thriving even more.
So the raised bed is best for growing strawberries, but if you have limited space, or issues with critters on the ground, you might want to try a growing strawberries in a gutter garden.
RELATED: We’re using gutters for growing lettuce in our cattle panel greenhouse. It takes advantage of vertical “air space”, and make for easy access for planting, watering and harvesting. Gutter gardens do dry out more quickly, so you’ll need to check them for water daily, or else set up a steady drip irrigation watering systems on a slight incline from top to bottom for self watering.
Migdalia Jolliffe is a veteran gardener and former farmer and owns Woodland Soaps in western North Carolina.
We’d love to see and hear about your ideas for strawberry planters. You can send your ideas and/or images and we’d be glad to publish them here.
I’m LeAura Alderson, a garden, herb and plant enthusiast with a passion for discovering the many edible and medicinal benefits of the plants all around us, including the weeds! I’m a writer, editor and media publisher for our family of websites.
While I was certified in fitness and life coaching, I am NOT a health practitioner. However, I’m a lifelong health enthusiast, with a keen interest in healthy, organic foods and making home remedies and the content we share is from our own experience and usage as well as that extracted from scientific research so that you can explore further on your own.
Always seek the advice and guidance of your health practitioners first and foremost.
As a family we’re steadily expanding our gardening, experimentation and knowledge around all things gardening, edible landscaping, fresh organic foods and self sustainability with farming in our future. I also own and manage iCreateDaily.com, a site all about transformation through creation, and the power of positivity, optimism and mindset.