Strawberries for 2020

[flowerbug]

ok, i have two kinds of plants mixed together in my patches here, Ozarks and Honeoye, the Ozarks are everbearers which don't normally have much of a 2nd crop to them, these do not get as many runners as the June bearers which go nuts. both taste good to me, but my preference is for the Ozarks because they get red all the way down better than the others. the others may take a few more days to get more red on the ends. if they're still too green i just snip that part off when i'm cleaning them. they both taste good for jam and fresh eating.

as far as how many plants i have, i've had up to 5000 sq ft of them growing here in four patches until the deer discovered them. now i have about 400sq ft. in one patch and a few scattered other plants that have survived predation since then. i also have a few hundred square feet of the wild tiny strawberries. which are good to eat too, but to get them you have to pick them when you see them or the birds and other creatures will snap them up.

 

[Prairie Rose]

My favorite strawberry to grow is also the ozarks, I like the flavor of the berries and they ripen well for me without rotting at the same time. I tried honeoye for a couple of years, but didn't like the flavor, it tasted washed out. They are also very determined plants. I still have a couple growing in my yard that I keep mowing off.

This year I am trying alexandria alpines, which is a variety that grow runners. My yard is full of wild strawberries, so I wanted to use runners instead of worrying about cross breeding.

 

[flowerbug]

My favorite strawberry to grow is also the ozarks, I like the flavor of the berries and they ripen well for me without rotting at the same time. I tried honeoye for a couple of years, but didn't like the flavor, it tasted washed out. They are also very determined plants. I still have a couple growing in my yard that I keep mowing off.

This year I am trying alexandria alpines, which is a variety that grow runners. My yard is full of wild strawberries, so I wanted to use runners instead of worrying about cross breeding.

hm, washed out flavor to me sounds like a lot of water and not enough sunshine or some other issue i don't experience. i've had a few i've eaten that were not impressive in flavor, but not as a general trend or the variety would have been replaced. i grow them in either clay or in my special strawberry patch inside the fence which is very heavily loaded with organic material and in both types of soil they do ok for flavor but the better results in quantity come from the more protected/fenced garden where the deer can't keep eating the tops off and the berries have more time to get ripe.

some of my plants get very strange shaped fruits and so i have to selectively remove those plants as i don't want that shape to become a dominant trait. more like hands than a single berry.

 

[Prairie Rose]

The first year I grew the honeoye it was very very wet, and the berries were rotting literally the same day they ripened. I just pinched them all off and let them grow, figuring I would try it again next year. The next year I had the opposite problem, it was a very dry...and my berries were still rotting as they ripened, and the ones that would ripen had a watery flavor. The area I had them planted in had decent soil, although it was dense, and full sun. The ozark beauties taste more like the berries we had when I was a kid...the patch was almost as big as my house, and I remember going down there to pick berries and eat them without ever bringing them back to the house!

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

Guess I need to track down some seeds and throw those into my strawberry area as well.

 

[flowerbug]

Guess I need to track down some seeds and throw those into my strawberry area as well.

you can usually get bare root or started plants already growing from a greenhouse or a big box store. i usually get everything i can from the local greenhouse. any of the strawberries with runners can give you plenty of plants by the end of the season. my starting with 5 Honeoye plants ended up with them being about 150 plants by the end of the season. the Ozarks were not as prolific, but they still did pretty good. now they are both mixed together and i don't do much other than weed and thin them out so there is some spacing (a few inches between plants). i don't mind a thicker patch growing as i'd rather have plants than weeds.

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

you can usually get bare root or started plants already growing from a greenhouse or a big box store. i usually get everything i can from the local greenhouse. any of the strawberries with runners can give you plenty of plants by the end of the season. my starting with 5 Honeoye plants ended up with them being about 150 plants by the end of the season. the Ozarks were not as prolific, but they still did pretty good. now they are both mixed together and i don't do much other than weed and thin them out so there is some spacing (a few inches between plants). i don't mind a thicker patch growing as i'd rather have plants than weeds.

At my last hpise I threw down the Alexandria and Yellow Wonder seeds and basically never touched them again.

I have a question open over at Star Bros if the Ozark bare roots are packages of 25 plants or not. It seems that way, but I just want to be sure.

 

[flowerbug]

At my last hpise I threw down the Alexandria and Yellow Wonder seeds and basically never touched them again.

I have a question open over at Star Bros if the Ozark bare roots are packages of 25 plants or not. It seems that way, but I just want to be sure.

says bare root bundles (in the planting guide):

Planting Strawberry Plants - Stark Bro's

Read about Planting Strawberry Plants in this Stark Bro's Growing Guide article. Cultivate ideas and grow your knowledge.

www.starkbros.com

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

says bare root bundles (in the planting guide):

Planting Strawberry Plants - Stark Bro's

Read about Planting Strawberry Plants in this Stark Bro's Growing Guide article. Cultivate ideas and grow your knowledge.

www.starkbros.com

yeah, and I see this morning someone else had the same question as me, though I didn't see it yesterday. Looks like their bundles have 25 plants, so I'll be ordering that up soon

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

Putting my order in for 50 Ozark plants early this year. I was thinking only 25, but I have a lot of kids and a big area that I built specifically for strawberries, so I might as well load it up on Ozarks and Yellow Wonders. Getting in there before another spring rush.