Disappointed with strawberries...

I've grown the usual strawberries which produce runners for years. You can't eat enough home grown strawberries and I've always had a good tasty crop. 

Thought I'd try alpine one's this year as they don't produce runners and I was looking for a strawberry which was perpetual, so grew a patch from seed. I've had lots of tiny fruit but they taste tarty. Their season though seems to be longer than the runner type varieties and I've had flowers/fruit since about May onward. Having a long season doesn't make up for strawbewrries which taste funny though maybe they are an aquired taste  

This year I've sown white and yellow strawberries for next year with the intention of clearing a veg bed just for strawberries. It seemed like a good idea when the seeds were sown but after tasting the red alpine one's I'm not so sure now.

Advise would be welcome? Has anyone grown white or yellow strawberries? One is supposed to taste of pineapples   

I've grown the red alpine strawberries for years. You need to let them be really ripe - almost black - before picking them, or they will taste tart. Not tried the other colours, sorry.

Alina-I'll leave them a little longer before picking to see what they taste like.

Not having runners, how long would a plant maintain a good supply of fruit before needing to be replaced and how do they reproduce, is it by self seeding from flower heads left unpicked or would I need to re-sow.

They tend to self-seed themselves from the seeds on berries that you miss or that the birds eat for me, so I don't really know how often you need to replace them - probably about three years. You do need a lot of plants to get a decent crop.

To be fair to them, they do like a bit more sun than they've had this year to get their best flavour - I've noticed that some of mine weren't as good as they should be.

Mine is a smalll garden but there are at least 30-40 plants in a narrow strip 1ft by 10ft, they were planted under new currant and  gooseberry bushes.

I get sun from morn to dusk,only limited by fences and the proposed new bed gets a tab bit more sun then where they are now. What I don't want is a plant self seeding and becoming a weed.

Has anyone tried pineberries?

It will self-seed, but it doesn't become a problem - they are very easy to remove if you don't want them.

I have lots of wild strawberries which seem very similar to the alpine variety but do reproduce through runners. The berries can be a little tart but are little explosions of flavour.

Sounds like they are an aquired taste, and so won't give up just yet after only the first year. I'm going to pot up the white and yellow strawberries seedlings. If they survive to being planted out will probably go ahead with a new strawberry patch for next year but alot can happen between now and planting out time. 

Has anyone grow pineberries.   

They do have a strange flavour and not at all like the genuine alpine strawberries you pick wild which seem to have a proper but intense strawberry flavour and are fabulous. I find the cuktivated type tastes rather soapy rather than tart.