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To streamline seed sales we have created a new site at Strawberry Seed Store. The minimum order is now lower and seeds are categorized by species. All of these changes should make it easier to order and open the door for more potential customers to enjoy the fruit of these gourmet strawberries.
My inbox is filling up with emails from families who are interested in growing their own strawberries. Almost every one says that they are looking for varieties that will produce large volumes of strawberries. Most mention that they also want varieties that taste great.
First, I want to congratulate these folks for making the decision to grow their own fruit. Next, I want to mention that I’m not in the “volume strawberry business”. I would love to be able to offer every variety that is available. However, I’m in the business of selling seeds and plants for gourmet strawberries, what I like to call strawberries with taste.
Don’t get me wrong. There are strawberry varieties being sold that taste great when they are allowed to ripen on the plant. I’m not a big fan of June bearing strawberries. It’s not necessarily the taste. Yes, many produce large volumes of berries. My opinion is that I’m not really interested in taking care of plants for a whole year and only being able to harvest for a couple of weeks. I like the day neutrals which will produce a spring and a fall crop. But, that’s just my preference.
I do sell a gourmet June bearing type that produces a lot of fruit called ‘Madame Moutot’. I will have more available in the spring but these sell out quickly. I will be introducing other heirloom varieties in the future. One that I hope to have available in the fall of 2011 is ‘Fairfax’.  My recommendation for buying June bearing varieties is to ask your local county extension office for their recommendations. Most states’ land grant universities publish recommendations for varieties and how to grow them. They can also test your soil for pH and nutrients. Use those resources.
The main day neutral hybrid that I carry is ‘Mara des Bois’. The fruit is generally medium sized and the plants are productive. It now has a large market share in Europe. The taste is terrific and the volume isn’t bad. You won’t get a giant crop in spring but you will get a nice crop and another in fall. The best part is the taste. Given the right nutrition this variety is very tasty.
Those would be my selections for producing a lot of fruit. But, it’s all relative. The alpines are not slouches when it comes to production. Many Americans are not aware that alpines, also known as fraises des bois, are being imported into the U.S. from overseas for a LOT of money. These European growers must know something that we don’t? The truth is that most of the literature here in the U.S. from garden writers and descriptions in garden catalogs is wrong (I have been on this high horse before so please forgive me for repeating myself). Most descriptions call the alpines cute little ornamentals that look and smell great along the sidewalk when planted about 6″ apart.
A customer recently sent an email and noted that planting any plant that you care about along the sidewalk is not a good idea. The soil along a sidewalk is not usually very rich. It’s usually packed clay. It will likely be walked on and in colder climates the plants will get a large dose of salt used to melt ice and snow. He’s exactly right. Given the space and care, alpines can be very productive. Yes, they are small, but wouldn’t you rather spend more time picking small aromatic berries with a heavenly taste that picking some giant relatively tasteless berries? The Europeans are treating their alpines like a crop. I can assure you that they are producing a lot of very tasty strawberries AND, they are making a LOT of money doing it.
I invite you to view a video I put together last year. Here’s the link:  The Strawberry Store Sells Gourmet Strawberries.
My recommendations for alpines is to check out the chart that I put together that rates the varieties. Here’s a link:
Alpine Strawberry Variety Characteristics.  For the most consistent production choose a couple of varieties. These plants flower cyclically when conditions are favorable. Planting several varieties will overlap each other in their cycles and produce fruit more consistently. Decide if you want to try yellow or white fruiting varieties. Why not try them? Grow a couple of red varieties and a novelty variety like ‘Yellow Wonder’. ‘Yellow Wonder’ is as productive as the best red varieties. I think yellow and white fruiting alpines are sweeter than the reds. And, the birds aren’t as apt to steal the yellows and whites.
Another recommendation is to not start out too big. I have received emails recently from families saying that they have these large areas set aside for next year’s strawberry patch. Unless you’re an experienced gardener, start out slowly and small. Experiment with different strawberry species, different types, different varieties. Learn to grow them. Learn how they grow in your climate, your soil, etc. Take those experiences into account for the next year’s crop. I too often learn that customers gave up after trying to do it all. Take it slow. We’ll have plants in future years for you to try. I’m planning to be around for some time, God willing.
On December 26, 2010 Nature Genetics published a monumental research effort. This work is awesome. I can’t say that I have read the whole article yet and have to admit that what I have read is difficult for me to understand. I did take college genetics, biochemistry and lots of biology classes. But, this work goes way beyond what most of us can comprehend. Check it out for yourself using the following link:
The Genome of Woodland Strawberry (Fragaria vesca)
It think it’s a great idea to use the now current technology to bring flavor back to the strawberry, even if it sacrifices some of the size. My one hope is that scientists can restrain themselves in creating GMO strawberries and ruining the wild strawberries (another post discusses this.
I frequently get asked questions like this: “We have a family of 4. How many alpine strawberry plants should we plant to be able to supply our strawberry needs?”. At first blush this question seems simple. Take the strawberry needs of 4 people and divide by production per plant. Right?
Not quite. Alpines, like most gourmet types of strawberries, and are not grown and sold by the quart. We Americans want the highest yielding whatever. It is obvious with strawberries that the flavor and aroma is not a consideration. Quantity wins.
Did you ever think about why portions of French dishes are so small. Americans don’t feel like they are getting value with such meals. I’m paying what for such a small portion? If you look at the size of the portion without tasting it you probably do feel short changed. But the value in French food is the taste, the experience, not the quantity.
If you are looking only at quantity, go buy a quart of strawberries in the store. During the summer when my alpines were not producing much because of the heat, I finally gave in to the temptation to buy a quart of strawberries at my local grocery store. In fact, they were selling them two for the price of one. Wow, what a bargain. They looked great. Huge unripe berries. In the final analysis, they were not a bargain. I ended up feeding most of what I bought to my worms. Pretty expensive worm food! There was very little aroma. Just enough to get me to buy them. The taste was horrible. The crispiness of an apple. Even sugar didn’t make it much better, just tolerable. Yes, they had strawberry flavor, afterall, they have most of the genes of strawberries. I was very disappointed and felt that I wasted my money.
So, what’s the answer? I think the only choice we have as consumers is to grow our own if we are looking for food that tastes good. And more importantly, if we want to be able to control what our food is sprayed with we must grow our own.
This has become the mission of The Strawberry Store. We are bringing back heirloom varieties. Many of these varieties were pushed out of the marketplace because their yields could no longer compete with newer varieties. Some fell out of favor for other reasons such as susceptibility to pests or that they don’t ship well. If you are growing them in your backyard, why do they need to ship well?
I heard from a strawberry breeder recently that he is not interested in working with varieties that don’t have all of what they now consider desirable characterics such as shipability, size, yield, etc. It is becoming more and more clear to me that these breeders are breeding strawberries that will at some point turn the tide. More and more consumers want to grow their own for some of the reasons already mentioned. If the flavor continues to be sacrificed for size and yield, at some point people will stop buying the fruit at the store like I have. If enough people get fed up with the lack of value then breeders are going to have to start reconsidering their positions.
We hear frequently from customers that they are happy with the heirlooms. Many customers are buying and planting varieties that we are reintroducing and testing themselves for characteristics important to them. The home gardener is now becoming the breeder in a way. They are selecting varieties that give them what they cannot buy at the store. Some are even becoming amateur plant breeders. They are planting the seeds from the strawberries that they grow and selecting their own varieties. In the 1800′s, this is how new varieties were introduced. Home gardeners were the plant breeders of that day. I think in some ways plant breeding is coming full circle. More and more are unhappy with the selections being introduced by professional breeders and are making their own selections. These selections are not solely based on yield. Flavor and aroma are a part of this selection process. And, a lot of the fruit picked gets eaten right in the garden. Who needs varieties that can be shipped thousands of miles when they are not shipped even one foot - they’re eaten on the spot or within 50 feet of where they are grown. This is the reason our business exists, and is thriving.
A couple of times now I have received emails from customers who are disappointed with the taste of alpine strawberries. In both cases they are growing in containers.
I have experienced the same disappointment at times when growing in containers. And, it doesn’t apply to alpines only. My first experience with ‘Mara des Bois’ was with fruit growing in containers and I was disappointed in the taste.
Since then I’ve done a bit of research online and found that nutrition can be one factor contributing to disappointing taste. Garden soil has nutrients that soil mixes that one buys does not. It is difficult to duplicate garden soil. The closest I’ve come is to use vermicompost. An analysis of vermicompost reveals many minor nutrients besides the normal N-P-K. It seems that we focus on those three key nutrients and forget about the other requirements that plants have.
I’ll conclude this with a quick story. My first experience with nutrient deficiencies was over 20 years ago when I was growing strawberries, including alpines, in a greenhouse. I was growing them in vertical 6″ tubes with a soiless mix. I was irrigating with fertilizer. Most of the plants were not producing well and the leaves were necrotic. I got the local county agent to come out who was experienced with strawberries. One look and he knew that they were being deprived of boron. I bought a small quantity of micronutrients with added boron and the problem readily cleared up.
I recently purchased the following book through Amazon.com. It is out of print but they carry used books from time to time. It’s a must read if you are interested in the history of strawberries.
A History of the Strawberry: From Ancient Gardens to Modern Markets by Stephen and Sagen, James Wilhelm
There is a full chapter about the Virginia strawberry. My favorite chapter is about Pine Strawberries. I sell ‘White Carolina’ which is even mentioned in this book.
I get asked this questions almost daily and sometimes more than once a day. I’m going to post a recent reply that I sent a customer when they asked if they have to worry about cross pollination between multiple varieties of alpine strawberries that they purchased and others asked if the alpines will cross pollinate with garden variety hybrids. It also applied to other species of strawberries like musks and virginia strawberries. All strawberries are in the genus Fragaria. Alpines are the species vesca; Musks are species moschata; virginia strawberries are species virginiana. Garden hybrids are species X (mean cross) ananassa.
Alpine strawberries are self pollinating aided by wind and insects. Mixed alpine varieties will cross. There is no getting around that unless each variety is isolated from the other. Isolation can be done with physical isolation (space between beds) or caging of each variety to eliminate cross pollination due to wind and insects. If one is saving seed and wants it to be true to the cultivar (variety) then isolation is a must.
The crossing doesn’t effect the flavor of the current crop of berries. What you will find in a mixed planting over time is that unpicked berries will fall to the ground and reseed. The seed from these berries is a genetic mix and may result in a varieties with new characteristics including runnering, different colored fruit, even different plant growth habits, etc. There is no way to predict what will result.
Many years ago I had a half barrel of ‘Rugen’ and a half barrel of ‘Yellow Wonder’ next to each other. In the third year I started noticing white berries in the barrel that should have had reds. It took a while to figure out what had happened. I initially thought the reds had reverted if there is such a thing. Some scientist, huh?
Usually, by the time this mixing happens the plants are overcrowded and ready for renovation. The soil is exhausted and little organic matter remains in the container. Renovation usually is done by dividing the plants and replanting into the same or other beds. The need for renovation depends largely on how well the bed was maintained. If most fruit is picked then there will be less “genetic contamination”.
As an extra point, crossing between species is not common for most species in nature. You don’t have to worry about alpines crossing with garden hybrids or wild plants of another species. Of course, there is always the chance that this would occur so it’s best to isolate from other species if you want absolutely no crossing. On the plus side, if you like to play the lottery, the cross between species could be the next million dollar variety!
Hi Mike.
I received great plants. Was a little worried at first because the box looked like it’d been dropped and broken open in shipment. But all the plants arrived (the day after you shipped, as it turns out), and they recovered quickly and now look very healthy. Most already have a few blooms.
Thanks again,
Customer from Texas
I wanted to make a comment or two about production that one can expect from different sized transplants. A few days ago I posted pictures of starter plants and quick starts. There is a huge difference in size, right? What does this mean for production.
Obviously, if you transplanted a starter plant and a quick start on the same day there would be a big difference in production. The starter plant likely has 1-2 more months before it will produce the first flower. Sometimes, later in the spring season, starter plants are starting to flower. But, a starter plant doesn’t have enough of a base, roots, and plant size to support much fruit.
Quick Starts are usually in bloom or have bloomed already when they are shipped. By have bloomed I mean that quick starts shipped in the fall and winter were blooming the past fall. Once they start growing again they will flower fairly quickly.
So, how much production can one expect from the two sizes. I have “eyeballed” some of the trials I have conducted over the last several years and will make some VERY general observations. If both sizes are planted in the spring, the Quick Start will produce more than twice the number of fruit that the starter plant will produce. And, the size of the fruit from the Quick Start will be substantially larger.
Starter plants are an economical way to get started growing alpines. You will get fruit the first season. If you live in a northern area with a short growing season you won’t get a lot of fruit. Farther south with a longer growing season and the possibility of getting a fall crop, you will get more fruit.
Quick Starts planted in the spring will be in a position the following year to produce nearly a full crop. If planted in the fall, quick starts can produce a fairly decent crop the next spring.
I’m sorry that this is not more clear, but that’s what happens when one is generalizing. Make comments if you need further explanation.