Alpine strawberries are exquisite in taste, and although much smaller, they are ever-bearers, which means they go fruiting until the first frosts...
I have a soft spot for alpine strawberries: on our very first allotment our next door neighbour gave my then wee daughter a clump to grow in her own raised bed. We left them on the plot when we moved, but my daughter still talks about them fondly.
If you have limited space, or are growing in pots, I always consider alpine strawberries a better bet than garden strawberries. Alpine strawberries are exquisite in taste, and although much smaller, they are ever-bearers, which means they go on fruiting until the first frosts. The plants themselves are also daintier than garden strawberries, so they make a very pretty ground cover.
You can still just about get away with sowing alpine strawberry seed this May, since the cold winter weather has put planting back by a few weeks.
I sowed a variety called 'Baron Solemacher' in a heated propagator a few days ago, but I've also ordered some plants online. Bare-rooted plants are held in cold storage, which means they can be sent out any time up to July to crop in the same year.
My original alpine strawberries were of an unidentified variety, but amongst the most flavoursome ones are 'Mara des Bois', which you can find in French markets, 'Alexandria', which has fewer but larger fruit than the Baron listed above and 'Gariguette', another French variety which has a distinctive long shape. The latter is grown by Raymond Blanc in his restaurant garden in Oxfordshire.
My alpine strawberries will be used as edging on my lettuce beds at home where I've dug in some home-made compost to enrich the soil. All we need now is some warm weather - it won't be long before I'm opening the backdoor first thing to pick these red gems for my breakfast bowl.
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