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| I had no clue that there were so many variants of strawberry. When I was younger we just thought of them as "garden strawberries" and they didn't get very large at all, but they were not terribly small either. I recently had the most delicious tasting berry and would love to know which sort it was so that I might buy it again since the plants died when the dog chewed through the sprinkler line. The plant had a very small footprint and very dark green leaves that were close set and white flowers. It seemed that it was more likely to produce fruit than runners and not a lot, only few berries at a time per plant, and they were true red, maybe an inch-ish in size. The shape was round at the top and sort of tapering to a point at the bottom like a heart. Another variety that was very flavorful had sort of the same bottom with elongated or stretched looking tops that made it more diamond shaped, Most of the ones I come across in stores are lighter green leaves with long stems that have a much larger footprint than these, and the fruits are usually attractive but disappointing to taste as they seem to have no flavor but water and the runners are practically unmanageable, Does anyone know what varieties would fit the former profile so that I could seek them out, and ones that are also more akin to the latter so that I could avoid them? Unfortunately, the smaller plants all sort of look the same to me and I have to go by the name. This years garden was so frustrating I have not been able to tell which of the varieties I did buy are actually tasty, though it looks like the Loren variety might behave similarly as the ones that were so good. I am looking for any that would fit the flavor profile of what they base the "strawberry flavor" candies like now&laters off of. (This was the first thing that came to mind when I bit into it, and it made me realize how much other fruit had been absent that actual flavor despite it being so large and pretty red in color, Don't care if it is going to last once ripe, since I am just as happy to eat them on the way back inside as later, and don't care how many there are as long as they taste more like strawberry than not like anything at all, and don't care how big they get, I started my garden to bring back the flavor to my food that is missing from the commercial produce, so I don't mind if they don't look good enough for retail sale. Everything I have been getting is all show and no go.. Anyone have personal opinions on which ones are the best for eating right off the plant? I'd love a taste based chart or ranking which lists the various kinds by flavor intensity vs mild (or what I might call "bland") and maybe subcategories of tart vs sweet, rather than production value. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| For June bearing varieties I would say hands down best flavored strawberry is earliglow. They are small and not overly productive but the flavor makes them worth growing. |
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| I have not tried enough to have a firm opinion on any cultivar. I made some observations though. The better conditions produce the better fruit. Some plants when young are tart, and as they mature fruit becomes sweeter. Not true for all, but some. Some are only sweet dead ripe, others have degrees of flavor and sweetness as they ripen. So if you do not know conditions the plants were grown under, I would not advise to judge till they grow in known conditions. Badly grown strawberries taste like badly grown strawberries. Ideally grown taste awesome. I have yet to find a bad one. Some are better than others, but bland? No never. I started with many cultivars, but they are so mixed up, I could not tell what the red ones are. I also grow white pineberries and the different cultivars have different shapes, so I can tell those. Again though they must be fully ripe. I do care a little about how long they last as I harvest more than I can eat. here is a typical daily harvest. |
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| One variety that is highly variable based on location is Albion. We grew a half an acre of them here in Kansas prior to the drought. I will link a YouTube video that discusses them. I tried Ozark beauty, fort Laramie etc but Albion worked best for me for an ever bearing variety. They say in California the taste may not be as good. The reason I bring it up is its a berry that fills in the gaps in the season. They were good here but definitely an ever bearing and not a june bearing variety. Sparkle or sparkle supreme is another June bearing variety that is excellent and more productive than earliglow. The whites Drew is growing I have not tried but would like to. I've been out of the strawberry farming for the last several years because of the drought but will likely plant again this year. I would suggest you plant small test crops prior to a major planting. In Kansas Albion for example would be a great commercial variety but I've heard widely differing reports from terrible tasting to wonderful. I think it may have something to do with rainfall totals but I'm not sure. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Albion
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| You might look at what Indiana berry has to offer they are who I always get my plants through. They have a lot of information and a lot of varieties. I ordered Albion from them when I could not find them elsewhere several years ago. I will attach a link so you can see pricing. I ordered a thousand of Albion last time and there was a big price break. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Indiana berry Albion
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| Another company to get strawberry plants from is Nourse Farms. They are competitively priced with Indiana berry and they offer some different varieties that may work for you. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Nourse Farms
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| One last website I would recommend is strawberryplants.org. They have a lot of information. By the way I mentioned the easy to find strawberry plants but let me also mention one I can't find but ate a lot of as a kid which is the fairfax strawberry. It was rare at the time I ate them. All berries I've had don't hold up to it's flavor. Faifax is the parent to sparkle which is why sparkle/sparkle supreme tastes so good. Fairfax is better flavored than any modern variety. |
Here is a link that might be useful: All about strawberries
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| I will eventually start a new patch and try some more June bearing ones myself. I prefer them in the sense they bear heavy and give you a lot at once. But it is nice to have some all year. So I grow everbearing too. New cultivars seem to pop up all the time. When I look at Indiana berry and Nourse, some I have not seen. One everybearing I liked for taste is Mara Des Bois. When ripe it tastes like a good strawberry, if you let it sit another day or two it tastes like an Alpine. A very interesting cultivar. Looking at Burpees' site, man more new ones, amazing! What you describe dark green, etc depends sometimes on how well fed. And all of mine have runners when healthy. They tend not to run when stressed. |
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| Hi I have been growing Alpines and 'Mara des Bois' for 13 years now. I seem to find the smaller the berry the more intense the taste. I also grow Honeyoye, which are large berries but taste very good as well. 'Mara des Bois' is my favorite as they range in size from tiny to medium and every once and while you get a very large berry. I keep my berries in separate beds so they never get 'mixed up'. Mara des Bois, is very popular as it does have a taste of a 'wild' berry in its flavor. It is IMHO the essence of strawberry to me. They make a delicious jam or quick compote. They are easy to grow! Mrs. G |
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- Posted by northwoodswis4 4a (My Page) on Sun, Jan 4, 15 at 13:35
| Sparkle is good. Also Ogallala, but the Ogallala doesn't produce very well for me. If the berries are deformed, it means you need boron. I just sprinkled a bit of 20 Mule Team around VERY sparsely, and it did the trick. Northwoodswis |
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- Posted by gardenerlorisc_ia 4a (My Page) on Sun, Jan 4, 15 at 13:44
| I very much like the Sparkle Supreme. I find the smaller size berries are the sweetest. The supermarket golf ball sized berries just don't have the taste I like. |
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| Drew have you considered growing strawberries using Matted-Row or plasticulture? I'm leaning towards these methods next time. If I was in California I would use plasticulture but can't decide if I can make it work here with something like albion. Mara Des Bois is an interesting variety Drew. I checked out the reviews http://www.burpee.com/fruit-plants/strawberry-plants/strawberry-mara-des-bois-pp-8517-prod001561.html Do you see a lot of size variation and initial plant loss? Do they thicken up pretty fast? Albion are huge and have a good flavor here but nothing like the flavor of the June bearers I mentioned earlier. Sounds like Mara Des Bois is rated by everyone as having a great flavor so perhaps a better choice than albion for everbearing based on flavor . |
Here is a link that might be useful: plasticulture versus matted-row
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| This topic comes around every few years. I've got no firm experience...but recall in years past, that Sparkle and Earliglow consistently got high marks for flavor, from multiple growers. Others...I dunno. |
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| MrsG my Honeyoye always tasted like they had a jello made with splenda aftertaste cornell describes as koolaid. They produced heavy, sent out lots of runners, resisted disease etc.. I just couldn't get past that slight after taste. No one ever complained if we made them into pie or jam which was their intended purpose but they really were not for fresh eating. For growth habit they were unstoppable. It was a love hate relationship that went on for years. Cornell's document says its due to my heavy soil. I like alpine. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell strawberry reviews
This post was edited by ClarkinKS on Sun, Jan 4, 15 at 16:26
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| Clark, thanks for the link to Cornell! Thank good I don't have clayey soil. Mrs. G I grow my Honeyoye in gutters. |
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| Seascape is the primary strawberry grown by small, side-of-the-road, farmers here in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. The ones that sell right at the field. Big strawberry with great flavor. |
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| I use the matted-row type system for my main bed. But so many runners are produced I'm constantly removing them. I kill hundreds of plants. The area allotted for new runners is quickly filled. Overall though I can renew plants often, makes it easy. For Mara des bois I grow them in window box type pots. 6 inches wide, 4 feet long. Berry size is smaller than other varieties. Size varies with older plants. Young plants produce well and have a larger berry size. So after 2 years I replace plants with new runners. It's easy because I can place an established pot next to a new one and easily plant new runners in it.I like this system for day neutral because these plants are not long lived. I can keep my June bearing plants a lot longer. After say 4 years I rip out the oldest plants. New runners are all over. I tend to remove some older plants every year as to provide room the next year for runners. I also use a few cultivars as ground cover in my ornamental flower beds. I don't do anything to them there. Truly really wanted for weed suppression and as a ground cover. Production is low there, but that is just icing, main purpose is ground cover. |
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- Posted by scottfsmith 6B-7A-MD (My Page) on Mon, Jan 5, 15 at 12:15
| If you are growing only one strawberry get Mara des Bois. I tried many (Sparkle, Earliglow, etc) and it has the most flavor. It also does well all over the US. The alpine and musk strawberries have their merits but are hard to get a decent sized harvest from. Sadly I have been out of strawberry growing for a few years now. The deer graze them to nubs over the winter when my sprinkler motion detectors cannot operate due to cold. I only have a tiny patch by the house where they are too afraid to go. Scott |
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| Nourse Farms has a great breakdown of June bearing by season. I would suggest at least looking what they have and how they rate them. I will be buying from them when i start new beds. These various season berries is how I do it. They do get mixed up a little, but I get an extended season. I don't have room for each season, so i combine them in one bed. Next time i will keep better track of each variety. I did note out of my June bearing before getting mixed up. Jewell performed well. But that is for my area. Taste was excellent. Out of Pineberries White D is far superior. Hard to find though. I plan on growing some runners out of the beds and bringing them back in. This next spring I'm going to label all plants. In 2016 I plan to restart bed. So I will remove all but a few pineberries and buy new plants. Here is the whole bed. Left back is 3 different pineberries. right back is musk. Some overlap into both areas. Here is a close up of White D |
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| There are very few varieties in our local stores. This year I am growing Ozark Beauty and Quinault. We'll see how that goes |
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| Yeah you guys in Zones 9 and 10 have a whole set of different problems, and trying to suggest for you is hard as what works here probably sucks where you are, and vice versa! |
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| Some strawberry links: http://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-marketwatch0409-20100410-story.html http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/16/food/la-fo-marketwatch-20100416 http://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-marketwatch-mara-des-bois-20110610-story.html http://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-marketwatch-online-20120323-story.html http://www.tastingtable.com/entry_detail/la/329/Ripe_Strawberries_in_May_and_June_in_Los_Angeles_Galante_%2B_.htm http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/13/dining/13stra.html?_r=0 http://seattletimes.com/html/living/2018372054_pacificpfootfood17.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/food/2012/05/do-strawberries-taste-as-good.shtml http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/preserving-the-louisiana-heritage-strawberry/Content?oid=1256857 |
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