GARDENER'S READING ROOM
Edibles

The Strawberry Report

The intoxicating scent of ripe strawberries immediately takes me back to the days of my youth when I was one of the hoards of young adolescents who spent part of their summers toiling away in the strawberry fields, trying to make a little extra spending money. Every morning of the season we would tune in to a local radio station to hear the “Berry Report” which let us know which growers were operating that day. They always opened with the Beatles song, “Strawberry Fields Forever.” For many years following my “career” in the berry fields, the smell of strawberries, or hearing the opening bars of the “Berry Report’s” theme song, made me cringe. Fortunately, with the passing of time, I no longer associate the scent of strawberries with dirty hands and knees and backbreaking labor. In fact, I now LOVE the taste of strawberries, and sometimes salivate uncontrollably at the mere hint of strawberry aroma. (As for that Beatles song…no comment.)

For strawberry lovers like me, it’s that time of year when you’ll want to begin to think about which cultivars of strawberries you’d like to plant. There are three categories of berries to consider: spring-crop (or June-bearing), ever-bearing, and day-neutral.

Spring-crop berries produce one major crop in June. There are several cultivars to choose from including ‘Hood’ which is a sweet medium- to large-berried variety; ‘Rainier’, which produces very virus-tolerant plants with large, cone-sized berries; and ‘Shuksan’, which has large, glossy berries with excellent flavor!

Despite the name, ever-bearing varieties do not produce all summer long but rather they produce one crop in June and another in summer to fall. ‘Quinault’ is the big favorite in this category. It produces large, soft, deep-red berries with good flavor.

Day-neutral varieties ARE ever-bearing. They produce a continuous (albeit light) crop of berries from summer to fall. ‘Eversweet,’ ‘Hecker’ and ‘Tristar’ are just three of the many delectable cultivars available.

Strawberries can be grown in beds, specially-designed strawberry pots, and miscellaneous containers - even in hanging planters! Also, because of their attractive foliage and berries, they’re perfectly appropriate mixed in with perennial plantings. For details on how to successfully grow and maintain your strawberries, be sure to pick up our informative handout on your next visit to Sky.

At this writing, we expect to offer 18 different cultivars of strawberries, sold in generous bundles (20-25 per) of dormant roots. This is a wonderfully cost-efficient way to obtain your own patch of strawberry-heaven right in your own back yard. You may not have strawberry fields forever, but surely enough to satiate your strawberry-craving taste buds.

By Judy Boersema
Skylights Spring 2007 Vol 22, No. 1

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