Wednesday 3 October 2012

Alpine Strawberries

A couple of months ago, when we visited one of our daughters, who lives in France, I bought a few packets of seeds at her local garden centre "Jardiland". One of these was for the little Strawberries we know as "Alpine" ones.


This purchase was very much an "impulse buy" for me, influenced strongly by the fact that the previous day we had bought some strawberries at the weekly market in Ferney Voltaire. They were not Alpine strawberries, but the type called "Mara Des Bois", and they were absolutely delicious. I was thus immediately determined to grow something just as nice in my own garden, and these seeds seemed likely candidates. On the pack it states that "Cette variete, tres productive, est remarquable pour la saveur de ses fraises, qui ont le parfum incomparable de la fraise des bois". Sounds good to me!

I sowed some of the (incredibly tiny) seeds on 27th July, in pots of moist compost, covered with a thin layer of very finely sieved compost. I kept them inside sealed plastic bags until they germinated, helping to preserve high humidity. The germination rate was very poor and I was initially unimpressed.


12 August - recently germinated

12 August - recently germinated.

Anyway, I didn't need a huge number of plants, so I wasn't massively disappointed. Since then the plants had been slowly increasing in size and had reached the point where I thought I could / should transplant them into individual pots.

24 September - 2 months old
 When I looked closely I saw that a second batch of seeds had recently germinated and there were now several more teeny-tiny plants in each pot. Tough! They're too late.


I watered the pots very generously and then eased out each little seedling very carefully with a dibber, trying not to disturb its roots too much. Each seedling then went into a home of its own - a 3-inch plastic pot:


I had planned to keep the six best ones, but in the end I potted-up eight, simply because that's how many 3-inch pots fit in one of my seed-trays, so now I have a couple of spares.


 I'm going to keep these indoors over the Winter months, on a cool windowsill in a spare room, and I'll plant them out next Spring. I still have to decide where to grow them. It will have to be in a "secure" location, that's for sure, because the birds and squirrels are bound to take a close interest in them - especially if they live up to the expectations raised by Messrs Vilmorin and Co.

18 comments:

  1. We grow lots and lots of alpine strawberries as borders on our plot with no protection. I'm not sure how your variety will produce but we find we need lots of plants to get a decent crop - they crop over a really long period of time.

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  2. We use them as an edging to our lawn in the landscape. They are much prettier than the regular strawberry.

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  3. Really interesting! I am still very much a newbie when it comes to veg growing and I was wondering how long it will take before your plants will bear fruit?

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    1. Ruth, I really don't know. This is the first time I have grown them. I'd be surprised if I got much of a harvest in their first Summer. Maybe you had better ask Sue or Daphne!

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    2. You should get some in the first year after sowing. We try to sow some fresh every year and replace any that had started to look old and worn out.

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  4. It will be good to see how they get on by Spring. I wonder if they will grow much over winter.

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  5. We have alpine strawberries popping up in several places in our garden. They just appear - I think we inherited them from next door who have them between the cracks in their patio. This year I decided to nurture one of the plants. I gave it a pot all of its own and it doubled in size during spring and early summer and then started producing fruits at about 2 a day. Lara likes to pick them off and eat them straight from the plant. They are a lot more tasty than the larger variety but we don't very often get to try them as Lara gets there first.

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  6. You mention birds getting them. I am in Australia and we have a very generous patch of these and the birds don't seem to go for them. My children delight in fossicking around for the fruit and they spread very easily.

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  7. I also find the birds don't bother with them at all. I have both some red varieities and yellow varieties of Alpine Strawbs and neither of them get eaten by birds, but sometimes bugs will have a nibble. I grew mine from seed last year (sown in Autumn) and they cropped a bit this past spring/summer, but now we're heading into spring again in Aus they're flowering like mad.

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  8. We have lots of wild strawberries but I don't think they are alpine as they never look like those on the package. I have tried to grow alpine strawberries several times but never have gotten them to germinate. I have not given up though.

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  9. There's an interesting thread here: birds don't like Alpine Strawberries. Why not, I wonder? We humans think they raste nicer than "real" Strawberries, but do they contain some different chemical that the birds dislike???

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  10. My neighbour has a big patch of them and her dog loves to eat them!

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  11. We love alpine strawberry very sweet. We usually found many volunteer sprouting in our mild winter. I think strawberry seeds prefer milder weather to germinate well.

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  12. Personally I have found them to taste horrible and wondered why the children like them. I have tasted one from this season though and it was a lot nicer. Maybe the birds will get them when they taste sweet and stay away when they don't!

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  13. Your skill in starting from seed continues to impress. I hope to get better at it.

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  14. The fruit may be small but it's packed full of taste.

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  15. They self-sow gently around my Mum's garden. She gave us a plant which I put in ours, and now we have a few little seedlings appearing here and there too. I must confess I find their sweetness almost saccharine, and prefer 'real' strawberries, but I do like these for just popping in my mouth as I wander about the garden, especially out of season.

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  16. I think "Mara Des Bois" is my favourite strawberry-the taste is outstanding. We used to have a chap who would bring his to our local Farmer’s Market at Usk and the punnets went ‘like hotcakes’!!

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