Strawberry

Finally, we’re back to some familiar territory! With all of the amazing and abundant wild foods out there, it’s hard to hit on everything while they’re in season!

Today is a much-anticipated article on a beloved fruit: the strawberry.

Plant Profile:

Scientific Name: Fragaria species (F. virginiana, F. vesca, F. chiloensis)

Preferred Habitat: Open meadows, forest edges, fields, grassy areas

Edible Parts: Fruit, leaves, tops (although leaves and stems taste unpleasant)

Distribution: Scattered across all of North America

Harvest Season: Varies (more on that below)

Key Identifiers: Distinct 5 petaled flowers, trios of leaves with toothed edges.

Toxic Look-Alikes: While I don’t know of any toxic look a-likes, there are some plants that look quite similar to strawberries but aren’t exactly: the mock strawberry looks like a strawberry but with the seeds dangling on little hairs instead of being embedded in the flesh. These fruits are edible but taste completely bland. To me they taste like water, so they aren’t really worth harvesting.

The other plant would be cinquefoil however this plant (sometimes called “barren strawberry”) doesn’t form any fruits at all and has yellow flowers rather than white. This plant is also medicinal so we will cover it in a future article!

Nutrition: (per 100g)

• Calories: 32

• Water: 91%

• Protein: 0.7g

• Carbs: 7.7g

• Sugar: 4.9g

• Fiber: 2g

• Fat: 0.3g

The first thing to know about this amazing plant is that strawberries are…well…complicated.

There are around 35-37 strawberry species and subspecies last I counted. Only a few of these are ones you’ll ever encounter, and only one specific hybrid is known as the “garden strawberry” that you are most familiar with.

History

The garden strawberry is a hybrid between the North American species F. virginiana, and the Chilean species F. chiloensis (the coastal strawberry).

The first garden strawberry was bred in France in the 1750s and another species (F. vesca) was the very first intentionally cultivated species of strawberry.

F. vesca is also called the “alpine” strawberry or the “woodland” strawberry and has a much more aromatic and intense strawberry flavor despite being smaller in size.

Physiology

Strawberries are not, botanically speaking, an actual berry. Instead, they are an aggregate fruit. This has to do with which parts of the fruit contain the seeds.

There are also a lot of complex cellular level stuff going on with the chromosomes of species in the Fragaria genus. There are diploid species (two sets of chromosomes) but also tetraploid, pentaploid hybrids, hexaploids, and even octoploid and decaploid species!

While this last point doesn’t have any major implications for the home gardener, it is fairly unusual and interesting to note.

Uses

I’m sure most of you readers know that strawberries have a great many uses. This includes fresh eating, freeze-dried, jams, jellies, desserts, ferments, teas, and fruit leathers.

Note: Store-bought strawberries in the U.S. tend to taste bland and watered-down compared to when they are eaten fresh-picked because commercial strawberries are grown almost exclusively in California or outside U.S. borders and harvested underripe.

Growth

Traditionally there are three types of strawberries (although in recent years this has been paired down to two):

June-bearing: As the name implies, bears fruit in early summer for a few weeks, then is done. Within the June-bearing group, there are early season, mid-season, and late-season varieties each with slightly differing timelines for bearing fruit.

These types put out a LOT of long tendrils that grow into new plants when they touch the ground. They also have decently heavy and fast yields, but only for a short burst before they are done for the year.

Everbearing: These are strawberries that produce an early crop and a second late summer crop. They tend to form less runners than June-bearing, and have smaller fruit, but in two separate seasons.

Day Neutral: This last type of strawberry produces a steady crop of fruit throughout the growing season (even up until frost) and produces little to no runners at all. The fruit tend to be a lot more aromatic and strong-flavored but significantly smaller than most garden strawberries.

NOTE: Recently the line has started to grow thinner between everbearing and day neutral varieties to the point where some make no distinction at all.

In the wild you will usually find day-neutral strawberries. At least that’s the case here in the Midwest, although there are exceptions to this as always!

I did find a white-yellow strawberry, and no, it’s not underripe! For multiple years in a row, they have never even started blushing red as they ripen. The flavor was vaguely tropical and quite good, so I wonder if this was either a hybrid species or a seed dropped by a bird from another white strawberry variety.

On this note, you can absolutely find wild strawberries out and about and they are incredibly delicious. The fruit are way smaller than regular strawberries, but the flavor is incredible.

Ok so now my favorite bit: I get to tell you some recommended varieties! Since this section will be longer than usual, I’ll sort them by class of strawberry, then I’ll list their growing type. (“DN” = Day neutral, “EB” = Everbearing, “JB” = June Bearing).

Garden Strawberry: (F. chileoensis X virginiana hybrid)

• Albion [DN] - A classic but flavorful and large strawberry. Often a choice for U-Pick strawberry farms.

• Jewel [JB] - A top notch mid-season variety with great flavor.

• Honeoye [JB] - An early-mid season variety known for high yields and fruit quality.

• Elan F1 [DN] - A highly delicious fruit that produces throughout the summer up until frost. This is often called the best tasting day-neutral variety on the market (I have two of these myself and they are excellent)

• Mara Des Bois [EB] - One of the best strawberries in terms of flavor! Commercially grown in France (and some parts of the U.S.) this strawberry is often described as being “the perfect strawberry”.

• Pineberry [JB?] - White strawberries with a hint of pineapple flavor. I have never tasted one fresh so I can’t really say but the ones I have bought taste like unripe strawberries. This is also a strain undergoing a LOT of experimentation and breeding right now, so the genes are being improved as we speak!

Alpine Strawberry: (F. vesca)

• Alexandra - A red alpine type with good flavor and few runners. Makes a good berry for containers and rock gardens.

• Red Wonder - A red alpine type with longer fruit and great flavor.

• White Soul - An improved white alpine type with excellent flavor and a longer harvest season.

Coastal Strawberry (F. chileoensis)

• Frutilla Blanca - A white strawberry that lacks any acidity lending to a highly sweet taste!
  

Johnny’s Select Seeds

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

Calloway’s Nursery

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