We have been primarily interested in F. vesca, the alpine or wood strawberry. Along the way we found F. moschata, the musk strawberry. The scarlet strawberry, F. virginiana was our next “discovery”.  Because F. viridis is a diploid we have been interested in F. viridis for breeding purposes.

Recently, we were able to obtain F. x vescana (a decoploid) and F. x bifera. F. vescana is a forced hybrid between a F. x ananassa and F. vesca. F. x bifera is obtained from the cross of diploid species F. vesca and F. viridis. This hybrid occurs naturally in Europe where both species’ distribution overlaps.

We have other species in our collection that we will discuss later. In the very near future we hope to make available plants of F. x vescana and F. x bifera. We recently added pics of F. bifera to our Facebook page.

I’m not going to go into all that right now. Suffice it to say that I recommend that one or a few plants are renovated at a time. You don’t want to take a chance with all your plants.

I’ll start this discussion with a reply to an email today from a customer who is having great success with their plants. They are growing in the garden in raised beds and in containers. They asked about cutting the plants back. Here’s the reply sent to them:

“Yes, the plants can be cut back to clean them up. Timing is critical and it is important to cut them back as little as possible. Once they have produced a crop they are messy because of spent bloom stalks and dead and dying leaves. The best and least risky way to clean them up is by hand by cutting out the bloom stalks and dead leaves. The next way would be to take a hedge clipper and trim them back, always leaving as much foliage as possible. The least desirable and not recommended way is to mow them down with a mower. Many will die as a result of this method.

The hardest thing to do after renovation is irrigation. The tendency is to overwater these plants to compensate for the trimming. Now that they have less foliage they will need less water, not more. Regularly overwatering leads to root rots. Some blame the trimming for the loss of the plants when in actuality it’s the irrigation.” 

I’ll continue this discussion as time allows.

We released the mason bees from the refrigerator around April 1st, 2013. Today (April 13th) I saw the first bee entered a hole in the block. That was exciting. We hope that this is a sustainable undertaking. We purchased the initial bees during the winter. We hope that enough bees will be produced each year to help us grow our seed business.

It’s now May 2nd and I can report that the mason bees seem to be doing well. I have stood near the cages a couple of times to observe. I can see the bees moving from flower to flower. I haven’t seen them entering tubes in the domiciles. A bato bucket partially filled with clay soil and watered well has been placed in each cage as a source of mud for the bees. They have all they need, now it’s up to them. Here’s a pic of one of the pollination cages. This particular cage is being used   to pollinate Fragaria vesca ‘Hawaii 4′. Plants are all in bato buckets and on a drip system..

Pollination Cage

Make sure and order early. Once we take the order we sow the tray(s). It takes 6 – 9 weeks from sowing to shipping. We think this is the most economical way to make these seed grown strawberries available. We are working on ways to make this size available to home gardeners.

• Unpack the shipment immediately
• Prior to planting in their permanent place, keep the plants in a shaded area and rehydrate
• Plant the plants asap. If you cannot plant within a day or two heel in or temporarily transplant into a container
• Make sure that the media is well drained and is slightly acidic
• Keep the media moist (but not wet) for at least the first two weeks after receiving the plants
• Mist to foliage several times daily if possible for the first week. Keep this to a minimum. Wet leaves for long periods of time create conditions for disease development/spread of disease
• Once planted, provide shade during the hottest periods of the day. If continuous shade is provided, gradually remove the shade over a period of a week so plants are not shocked. Direct sun on tender foliage can cause the foliage to burn.
• Do not over fertilize. High levels of fertilizer may cause root burn. Allow the plants to establish for about two weeks before starting high nutrient fertilization

Organic Strawberry Production Manual

We will be offering pine berries for fall 2012 and spring of 2013 but they will not be grown by us here in Delaware. A terrific grower is now rooting the next crop in Tennessee. All production is bare root production which will allow the plants to be shipping to all 48 continental states. We are not yet sure whether they can be shipping to AK or HI. We will be doing the marketing and taking the orders but the orders will be filled by the new grower. The grower will also be offering several selections of Fragaria virginiana such as ‘Little Scarlet’ and ‘Intensity’ as well. We should be in a position to start taking orders soon. Anyone who has setup a product notification will be notified when inventory has been added to the shopping cart.

We have given most of our web sites a face lift. Our main ecommerce sites will be upgraded shortly. This will allow us to add and update content more easily and hopefully more often. At the bottom of each page of the sites that have been upgraded is a list of the other sites in our family of web sites. These are primarily informational sites that supplement the content of our ecommerce sites. Some have content on species and selections that we are not offering for sale at this time.

We will continue growing custom orders of plugs and plants. Contact us if you have needs. We need to know well in advance of your needs. We will not be growing lots of plants and offering them on a shopping cart other than those being grown by other growers. Anything grown by us will have large minimum quantities and will require a deposit before we sow the seeds.

The post just before this one is about consulting and commercial production of gourmet strawberries. We are now testing systems that could be used by commercial growers that we believe will produce gourmet strawberries, particularly alpine strawberries, and significantly reduce labor costs.

For specifics for any of this information please contact me at mike@thestrawberrystore.com. To order seeds visit our seed site at Strawberry Seed Store. For one of our sites with a list of the other sites visit fraises des bois.

……… I consult to growers who plan to grow gourmet strawberries for the high end market. I will provide a few thoughts without a consulting agreement.

First, alpine/woodland types are so soft that high tunnel type protection is essential for optimum production. They can be grown in the open field. I grew them this way more than 20 years ago and supplied a five star French restaurant with the fruit. I did not have protection and lost a fairly large portion of the crop after each rain or wind storm. These storms increased disease problems for the fruit that was not damaged directly by the storms. Gourmet types of hybrid strawberries such as ‘Mara des Bois’ can be grown without protection.

It is essential that you either talk to or conduct a survey of potential customers including chefs. Finding out ahead of time about their needs will save a lot of time and money in the long run. Also keep in mind that there are markets for gourmet strawberries outside of restaurants. High end bakeries, caterers, and others are also potential customers and should be contacted to determine their needs.

My first “rule” is START SMALL. Growers frequently contact me saying that they have set aside several acres and ask for a quote on thousands of plants or zillions of seeds. Growing for this market is more like micro farming. Managing small areas intensively to produce high quality high value fruit. A grower in NJ started a gourmet strawberry biz in NJ this spring. He wanted to grow thousands of plants. I convinced him to start with 300. I think he’s glad he started small. Growing the plants is the easy part. Harvesting is very labor intensive. Doing all of this while trying to develop the market and fine tuning various aspects of the business can be a daunting task.

I offer a resource to growers who are considering gourmet strawberries as a crop. It is a publication that is on both my sites. The nearly $80 price tag discourages some. I will say that I wish I had that information available to me when I was starting out. I can assure you that the price tag of this publication doesn’t even scratch the surface of the costs of research that I have conducted to get to the point where I am today.

Once you get a relatively clear idea of what local customers are looking for we can talk about timing and specific selections/varieties. I am not growing plants for large scale retail sales any longer. This past spring was my last season of that. Instead, I am concentrating on seeds sales as well as consulting. I will grow custom orders of plants but it’s getting late to start a fall crop. Because I don’t have greenhouse facilities any longer it would be nearly impossible for me to start a spring crop here. I’m sure there are local growers who could grow the plants for you if you can’t do this yourself …….

I’m glad the plants are doing well. For spring planted strawberries I recommend removing the flowers for 3-4 weeks. This helps the plant to establish a root system that will be needed to support a fruit load in the future. The plants will grow rapidly in the cool of spring. Of course, if you’ve never tasted the fruit don’t torture yourself. Let a few flowers produce fruit the first time around. A few fruit won’t devastate or severely set back the plants!!!

I don’t know about your area and straw. Here, garden centers, a few produce stands and farm suppliers carry straw in the fall. Other materials will work as long as the plants can breathe. Regular mulch is too dense and will likely smother the plants. I have heard that pine needles works as does corn stalks, though I have never tried either. I tried leaves on a very limited basis a few years ago and almost all plants under the leaves died over winter. Other options include moving the plants, if in containers, to unheated garages/sheds/cool room, etc. In all cases mentioned above, make sure that the plants don’t dry out over winter. It may sound crazy but I have watered plants outside during a very dry winter. Oh, snow is also a good “mulch”. When covered with snow the temperature at the interface of snow and plant is 32F, perfect temp for winter!! It’s the wind that’s the enemy!

So far the root pouches are working out well. The plants seem to love the soil aeration and I believe that soil temperature is moderated. I need to put a thermometer in various types of pots to check it out. I purchased the pouches from the Mega Greenhouse store (an online search will reveal the URL) for what I consider a great price. One observation with the root pouches, and even other types of fabric pots is container height. Most seem to be taller than they are wide (I’m not sure how these companies decide on height/width). This introduces an issue with tipping, like from the wind. Strawberries only need about 6-8″ soil depth. The fabric pots can be folded down to whatever height you want. I recommend rolling them down. It will save soil and reduce potential damage from tipping over.

I tried companion planting with mixed results. I was looking for plants that would attract pollinators as well as the promised effects of companion planting (better yield, etc.). I had also hoped to attract beneficial insects. Borage didn’t seem to have any benefits and it was a pain to grow especially in containers. I didn’t try thyme but it can’t hurt I suppose … at least you can eat it either way! I tried several types of clovers. When they bloomed they brought in several types of pollinators, some in large numbers. Unfortunately, the clovers bloomed way after the strawberries bloomed. By the time the clovers bloomed the temperatures were high and the strawberries were cycling out of bloom. I didn’t look at more than that. I’m sure there are companions that would be beneficial, I just didn’t stay with it long enough to find those relationships.

All the videos in the guide are on our YouTube Channel. You may have to sort through the videos and figure out the correct order to view them. We apologize for the inconvenience and will work on getting the video guide to work if possible.

Most of the garden hybrids that we see in the grocery store have little or no MA. It is present only in the wild types of several species. In fact, several species other than F. vesca have higher MA content, even though F. vesca has a high content. I located a couple of these species and am in the process of attempting to get them shipped to me. This is not an easy task, but will be well worthwhile if I can accomplish it. My hope is to look at these species in terms of production and taste to see whether they can be commercialized. A longer range dream is to cross the most promising to create stable hybrids with high aroma, excellent taste and high productivity. I’m a dreamer but we’ll see what happens.

Strawberry Shapes

Thanks to http://strawberry.ifas.ufl.edu/breeding/varieties.htm for the image.

First, I want to congratulate these folks for making the decision to grow their own fruit. Next, I want to mention that I’m not in the “volume strawberry business”. I would love to be able to offer every variety that is available. However, I’m in the business of selling seeds and plants for gourmet strawberries, what I like to call strawberries with taste.

Don’t get me wrong. There are strawberry varieties being sold that taste great when they are allowed to ripen on the plant. I’m not a big fan of June bearing strawberries. It’s not necessarily the taste. Yes, many produce large volumes of berries. My opinion is that I’m not really interested in taking care of plants for a whole year and only being able to harvest for a couple of weeks. I like the day neutrals which will produce a spring and a fall crop. But, that’s just my preference.

I do sell a gourmet June bearing type that produces a lot of fruit called ‘Madame Moutot’. I will have more available in the spring but these sell out quickly. I will be introducing other heirloom varieties in the future. One that I hope to have available in the fall of 2011 is ‘Fairfax’.  My recommendation for buying June bearing varieties is to ask your local county extension office for their recommendations. Most states’ land grant universities publish recommendations for varieties and how to grow them. They can also test your soil for pH and nutrients. Use those resources.

The main day neutral hybrid that I carry is ‘Mara des Bois’. The fruit is generally medium sized and the plants are productive. It now has a large market share in Europe. The taste is terrific and the volume isn’t bad. You won’t get a giant crop in spring but you will get a nice crop and another in fall. The best part is the taste. Given the right nutrition this variety is very tasty.

Those would be my selections for producing a lot of fruit. But, it’s all relative. The alpines are not slouches when it comes to production. Many Americans are not aware that alpines, also known as fraises des bois, are being imported into the U.S. from overseas for a LOT of money. These European growers must know something that we don’t? The truth is that most of the literature here in the U.S. from garden writers and descriptions in garden catalogs is wrong (I have been on this high horse before so please forgive me for repeating myself). Most descriptions call the alpines cute little ornamentals that look and smell great along the sidewalk when planted about 6″ apart.

A customer recently sent an email and noted that planting any plant that you care about along the sidewalk is not a good idea. The soil along a sidewalk is not usually very rich. It’s usually packed clay. It will likely be walked on and in colder climates the plants will get a large dose of salt used to melt ice and snow. He’s exactly right. Given the space and care, alpines can be very productive. Yes, they are small, but wouldn’t you rather spend more time picking small aromatic berries with a heavenly taste that picking some giant relatively tasteless berries? The Europeans are treating their alpines like a crop. I can assure you that they are producing a lot of very tasty strawberries AND, they are making a LOT of money doing it.

I invite you to view a video I put together last year. Here’s the link:  The Strawberry Store Sells Gourmet Strawberries.

My recommendations for alpines is to check out the chart that I put together that rates the varieties. Here’s a link:
Alpine Strawberry Variety Characteristics.  For the most consistent production choose a couple of varieties. These plants flower cyclically when conditions are favorable. Planting several varieties will overlap each other in their cycles and produce fruit more consistently. Decide if you want to try yellow or white fruiting varieties. Why not try them? Grow a couple of red varieties and a novelty variety like ‘Yellow Wonder’. ‘Yellow Wonder’ is as productive as the best red varieties. I think yellow and white fruiting alpines are sweeter than the reds. And, the birds aren’t as apt to steal the yellows and whites.

Another recommendation is to not start out too big. I have received emails recently from families saying that they have these large areas set aside for next year’s strawberry patch. Unless you’re an experienced gardener, start out slowly and small. Experiment with different strawberry species, different types, different varieties. Learn to grow them. Learn how they grow in your climate, your soil, etc. Take those experiences into account for the next year’s crop. I too often learn that customers gave up after trying to do it all. Take it slow. We’ll have plants in future years for you to try. I’m planning to be around for some time, God willing.

The Genome of Woodland Strawberry (Fragaria vesca)

It think it’s a great idea to use the now current technology to bring flavor back to the strawberry, even if it sacrifices some of the size. My one hope is that scientists can restrain themselves in creating GMO strawberries and ruining the wild strawberries (another post discusses this.

I’m bringing this up now because I’m starting to offer seeds and plants with pink or rose flowers. Those that I have selected will produce fruit. These include ‘Fragissimo’ and ‘Tarpan’. We’ll talk more about those in another post.

Back to the pretty non productive ones. I found an excellent site that explains where these strawberries come from. The link is at Fragaria x Potentilla Hybrids. Strawberries that are grown for ornamental purposes that do not produce fruit include: ‘Pink Panda’ (also known as ‘Frel’), ‘Franor’ (aka ‘Red Ruby Strawberry’), ‘Gerald Straley’, and ‘Lipstick’. If you’re buying these for ornamental purposes then they are good choices. But, why buy ornamental strawberries when there are REAL strawberry varieties with pretty pink or rose flowers that produce tasty fruit?

Not quite. Alpines, like most gourmet types of strawberries, and are not grown and sold by the quart. We Americans want the highest yielding whatever. It is obvious with strawberries that the flavor and aroma is not a consideration. Quantity wins.

Did you ever think about why portions of French dishes are so small. Americans don’t feel like they are getting value with such meals. I’m paying what for such a small portion? If you look at the size of the portion without tasting it you probably do feel short changed. But the value in French food is the taste, the experience, not the quantity.

If you are looking only at quantity, go buy a quart of strawberries in the store. During the summer when my alpines were not producing much because of the heat, I finally gave in to the temptation to buy a quart of strawberries at my local grocery store. In fact, they were selling them two for the price of one. Wow, what a bargain. They looked great. Huge unripe berries. In the final analysis, they were not a bargain. I ended up feeding most of what I bought to my worms. Pretty expensive worm food! There was very little aroma. Just enough to get me to buy them. The taste was horrible. The crispiness of an apple. Even sugar didn’t make it much better, just tolerable. Yes, they had strawberry flavor, afterall, they have most of the genes of strawberries. I was very disappointed and felt that I wasted my money.

So, what’s the answer? I think the only choice we have as consumers is to grow our own if we are looking for food that tastes good. And more importantly, if we want to be able to control what our food is sprayed with we must grow our own.

This has become the mission of The Strawberry Store. We are bringing back heirloom varieties. Many of these varieties were pushed out of the marketplace because their yields could no longer compete with newer varieties. Some fell out of favor for other reasons such as susceptibility to pests or that they don’t ship well. If you are growing them in your backyard, why do they need to ship well?

I heard from a strawberry breeder recently that he is not interested in working with varieties that don’t have all of what they now consider desirable characterics such as shipability, size, yield, etc. It is becoming more and more clear to me that these breeders are breeding strawberries that will at some point turn the tide. More and more consumers want to grow their own for some of the reasons already mentioned. If the flavor continues to be sacrificed for size and yield, at some point people will stop buying the fruit at the store like I have. If enough people get fed up with the lack of value then breeders are going to have to start reconsidering their positions.

We hear frequently from customers that they are happy with the heirlooms. Many customers are buying and planting varieties that we are reintroducing and testing themselves for characteristics important to them. The home gardener is now becoming the breeder in a way. They are selecting varieties that give them what they cannot buy at the store. Some are even becoming amateur plant breeders. They are planting the seeds from the strawberries that they grow and selecting their own varieties. In the 1800′s, this is how new varieties were introduced. Home gardeners were the plant breeders of that day. I think in some ways plant breeding is coming full circle. More and more are unhappy with the selections being introduced by professional breeders and are making their own selections. These selections are not solely based on yield. Flavor and aroma are a part of this selection process. And, a lot of the fruit picked gets eaten right in the garden. Who needs varieties that can be shipped thousands of miles when they are not shipped even one foot – they’re eaten on the spot or within 50 feet of where they are grown. This is the reason our business exists, and is thriving.

Corn for example has been modified in several ways. One way is by modifying the genetics of the corn plant so that it produces a bacterial pesticide in every cell. This pesticide is known as Bacillus thuringensis. It kills a number of different types of worms. Another modification allows corn to be sprayed with a herbicide called Roundup. The corn is known as Roundup Ready. This herbicide is broad spectrum non selective herbicide the essentially kills most any green plant. It doesn’t just kill the foliage. It translocates throughout the plant and kills it roots and all.

So how does all of this relate to strawberries? In fact, I hadn’t thought about it too much. I sell seeds and plants that to my knowledge have not been genetically modified. Most are selections that have been grown for centuries without breeders getting involved, except perhaps home gardeners or European commercial growers looking for certain specific characteristics that improve various aspects of that cultivar.

Within the last 6 months I have become aware of behind the scenes work going on with hybrid strawberries to modify the genetics. In fact, it appears that this has been going on since the 1990′s. Do a quick search on Google for “genetic modification strawberries”. Some very interesting articles pop up. I won’t go into detail, but work is being done to introdroduce fish genes into strawberries to provide them with frost protection … the type of frost protection that the arctic fish have. Another modification involves making strawberries Roundup Ready. A widely used commercial fumigant has been doomed for quite some time. Those who are working on making strawberries herbicide tolerant are justifying it by saying that the loss of the fumigant will increase labor costs needed to remove weeds from the commercial plantings – which will also drive up the price of strawberries in the store.

Other than the obvious worry about adding yet another herbicide to the long list of pesticides that are applied to commercial strawberries, why would I spend any time mentioning all of this? The Google search also turned up several articles about what is being called genetic drift. It seems that wild strawberries that are growing in the vicinity of genetically modified strawberries pick up these characteristics fairly quickly. There is a very real possibility that the wild populations will be decimated by this genetic manipulation. The genetic manipulation can also render current species infertile. The movement of genetic alterations to wild populations has been proven in the case of sunflowers.

It doesn’t seem like many are concerned with what’s going on. Even the government isn’t protecting wild species and requiring extensive testing before releasing the genetically modified plants. Look what happened at the research level when killer bees escaped. It’s too late once the release has been done. You can’t take it back. You can only deal with the consequences. And, the consequences could be devastating. It could mean the loss of the wild species that we know.

Think about it. Do what you can. Talk to politicians and others that can influence those “in charge”. I think it’s time that we stand up and say something about what’s going on. I for one intend to start. I’m not sure yet where I’ll start, but something must be done to prevent a potential disaster to wild populations of strawberries.