While there are dozens of different plants to try growing in a Click and Grow smart garden, the Wild Strawberry pods are among the most satisfying. Imagine growing your own strawberries indoors during the winter! Here is an overview of my experience with Click and Grow strawberries.
Click and Grow strawberry plant pods
Click and Grow strawberries are quite easy to grow as the manufacturer offers pre-seeded strawberry plant capsules that contain strawberry seeds. Since finding strawberry seeds can be a bit tricky, it’s nice to have the seed pod option available from Click & Grow.
Strawberry seed pods currently cost $12.95 USD for a 3-pack or $29.95 for a 9-pack (use my promo code HHARVEST for 15% off). The strawberry capsules are among the most popular Click and Grow plant pods.
Click & Grow Store: Wild Strawberry Seed Pods (*Use my promo code HHARVEST to get 15% off)
If you do have strawberry seeds, you can also use the blank “Grow Anything” empty seed capsules to grow those seeds. Just pop the seeds you have into the soil sponge pods when they arrive. I suggest choosing seeds for an alpine strawberry cultivar.
Timeline for growing strawberries in a Click & Grow
Strawberry seeds are typically quite slow to germinate, whether you’re sprouting them indoors or out in the garden. It took 2-3 weeks after planting the pods in the Click & Grow before the strawberry seeds germinated and seedlings appeared. Strawberry pods are one of the slowest varieties to germinate, so be patient!
It took almost four months to harvest strawberries, which is actually quite quick for strawberry plants in general. There were 98 days between first inserting the pods into the Click & Grow until the first ripe strawberry appeared. Here is a timeline of how long it took to grow strawberries in my Click and Grow garden:
- April 25: Put seed pods into Click & Grow and add water
- May 7-14: Germination visible, seedlings appearing
- August 1: First strawberry ripened
- August 15: Transplanted strawberry plants out into the outdoor strawberry patch
See below for a photo timeline of growing the strawberry plant capsules:
Tips for growing strawberries in a Click and Grow
There were a few interesting things I learned with these Click and Grow strawberries. The first was to be patient! It took 2-3 weeks for the seeds to germinate into visible seedlings. Once they did germinate, however, it was obvious that there were two seedlings in each pod. I suppose that the manufacturer puts two seeds into each pod for redundancy in case one seed fails to germinate.
I ended up with six separate plants in 3 pods. The roots grew tightly together, so I did not try to separate them. When I grow strawberries from seed in the Click n Grow again, I think I’ll trim off any extra seedlings so there are only three total plants (one in each plant pod).
The other learning was about hand pollination. I tried many different methods, from using a Q-tip to a kids’ paintbrush and even just pushing two flowers together. In the end, the paintbrush seemed to work best for hand pollination.
The important thing about hand pollination is to move pollen from the outside of each flower into the center of the flower. There are little yellow lollipop-like pollen holders around the center of the flower. Use the paintbrush to move the pollen into the very center of the flower (see photo below). Try to get the pollen all over the center. After pollination, the center swells up and develops into a strawberry. It’s very neat to watch!
