The WSU Clallam County Master Gardeners will kick off its Class Act at Woodcock Garden education series with an introduction to growing strawberries at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 23, at the Master Gardener’s Demonstration Garden, 2711 Woodcock Road.

Veteran Master Gardener Jeanette Stehr-Green will talk about selecting, planting and caring for strawberries plants.

She will help local gardeners make sense of the general types of strawberries, identify varieties recommended for Western Washington and discuss how varieties can be selected so as to extend the fresh berry season. She will describe the ideal planting site, proper spacing and planting techniques. She will describe seasonal care of strawberries, including post-harvest renovation of June-bearing strawberries, and protection of strawberries over the winter.

After hearing this presentation, local gardeners will be able to select varieties of strawberries appropriate for the North Olympic Peninsula, plant strawberries so they are most productive, provide the care strawberries need to be happy and healthy, and recognize when a strawberry patch is no longer productive and it is time to start a new patch in a new site.

Stehr-Green has been a Master Gardener since 2003. She has provided many presentations to the public on gardening and regularly contributes to Master Gardener newspaper columns in the Sequim Gazette and Peninsula Daily News. She appears on “Garden Talk” a live, hour-long monthly gardening show on KONP Radio with host/moderator Todd Ortloff and two other Clallam County Master Gardeners.

She has been growing berries on the North Olympic Peninsula for over 12 years. The Class Act at Woodcock Garden series is held on various Saturdays of the month through Sept. 26.

The Master Gardeners will also begin its Saturday plant clinics at the Woodcock Demonstration Garden on May 23. Clinics, open from 9 a.m.-1 p.m., are designed to help answer gardening questions and solve insect and plant disease problems in home landscapes and gardens. Local Master Gardener volunteers will be on hand to address plant and pest problems and to help the client research solutions. People with questions are asked to bring bagged samples of healthy and damaged areas of plants, including stem, leaves, flowers, fruits or cones and living specimens of pests.

In addition to the Saturday plant clinics, plant clinics also are from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. on Mondays at the Clallam County Courthouse.

The presentations and plant clinics are free and open to the public. For questions, call 417-2279.