Selfsufficientish.com

A couple of days ago, I finished building three strawberry boxes. My wife and I filled them with a layer of sand topped by lots of topsoil and planted 52 strawberry plants in them.

They are everbearing berries, so, after a couple of months picking off the blossoms to help them get established, we should be able to start harvesting them about August. The last place we were at, when we planted our strawberries, we were told to pick all the blossoms the first year. By August, the plants were so well established that they were threatening world domination. We had to let them set fruit just to slow them down! This year, they told us that that is what you are supposed to do.

We love berries. Our idea of heaven is to have a freezer so full of berries that we are scrambling in May to empty it to make room for the new crop.

I've never heard of everbearing strawberries. Have you got any more info - size, variety etc? I'm wondering if they're what I'd know as alpine strawberries.

Green Aura wrote:I've never heard of everbearing strawberries.

Goodness me, you really do live in a world of your own GA
You obviously haven't read any of my posts about strawberries then, because I only grow everbearing ones.
This year my new variety is Mara de Bois which is a regular everbearer crossed with an alpine strawberry. Actually it sounds better than it is, it's supposed to taste like an alpine but in the size of a regular strawberry, but unfortunately it's taste is only so-so. Pleasant, but nothing like an alpine.
The other everbearer I'm growing is Buddy.

Keith, I grow my strawberries hydroponically and don't bother picking off flowers. They grow one season and then they are replaced with new plants from the runners they produce.
Pictures here http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/ ... =1&t=29448

Green Aura wrote:I've never heard of everbearing strawberries. Have you got any more info - size, variety etc? I'm wondering if they're what I'd know as alpine strawberries.

These ones are a variety called 'Seascape'. We grew 'Alpine' berries that last place we were at. They are also everbearing. I have no idea what the Seascape berries will be like. We bought them because they are a locally-grown variety, on the assumption that they will do well here. Anything home-grown will be better than tasteless grocery store berries.

Traditional strawberries set a ton of fruit in June and then do nothing the rest of the season. Everbearing varieties set fruit all summer and into the autumn, only stopping when they are damaged by frost. With June-bearing berries, you have to pick and process them every day or you fall behind. With everbearing varieties, you pick less each day, so you can process them less often. We freeze most of ours.

Well I'm obviously going to have to look into this more - maybe even read some of Tony's posts

I have a lovely little strawberry bed which we started last year. It didn't do much but we figured that was because it was new. Apart from a couple of alpines we got all the other plants from a garden centre - several different varieties (I can't remember which) none were labelled everbear though. I suppose I'll have to wait and see if we get a glut in early summer or a steady, smaller crop.

The local producers here (soft fruit is one of the main crops) manage to produce strawberries now from April to October - under cover, of course; but the times when strawberries were a June crop are long gone... I remember when it was one of the highlights of the year to have a massive strawberry tart for my mother's birthday (23rd June)!

I've had a few ever bearing strawberry plants and found them to be smaller than average. Therefore I have added some autumn bearing strawberries to lengthen the season - however we are on short seasons anyway being north of London - lol