How many strawbs?

[hedgewizard]

HI folks, getting ready to place my strawbs order but wondering now how many plants to put in. The book I'm reading suggests 30 plants for a family of four, but that sounds a lot. Verdicts?

[Millymollymandy]

I suppose it depends on the variety and whether they are remontant or not.

I have about 24 plants, but they are all first year ones. We've not had more than a handful here and there and they were all small (but it might be something wrong with the strawb plants).

Also don't forget, to save money you can make new plants very easily from the runners. So perhaps only buy half as many as you need because the next year you could have quadruple that number!

[Andy Hamilton]

I can foresee hedgewizards strawberry jam being the best selling jam in Dorset.

[Millymollymandy]

Not if he buys Gariguette strawbs he won't. I got 3 small strawbs from 6 plants!

[the.fee.fairy]

I've got some alpine strawberry seeds - when should i plant them?

[hedgewizard]

In the spring! You might get away with overwintering them, but as they usually fruit in their first year I shouldn't bother. Incidentally one website I looked at claimed that growing them in the same area as other strawbs can affect the other strawbs flavour due to cross pollination. This sounds like horsecrap to me. Opinions?

[Millymollymandy]

Would it matter? I thought alpine/wild strawbs were supposed to be 'superior' in flavour so it might be a good thing. There is a variety of alpine called 'Mara des Bois' which are bigger fruit with the wild strawb flavour which are very popular in France.

[hedgewizard]

Don't know about superior in flavour. If you catch them *just* right they can be very nice and quite intense, but a bit sharp for eating on their own imho.