Did you know you can buy strawberry plants online? You can! And strawberries are one of the easiest berries to grow. Many online plant nurseries have strawberries on sale. In general, strawberries grow in zones 3-10, which means you can grow them in any state in the nation.
If you want to buy strawberry plants, remember that there are several different types of strawberries. Everbearing Strawberries produce fruit non-stop from June through summer and fall, all the way up until frost. These incredible producers will reward you with high yields of beautiful, scrumptious strawberries longer than any other type. Raintree Nursery offers some of the best day neutral varieties.
TriStar, Eversweet, and Albion are some amazing varieties of everbearing strawberries.
Some people say the sweetest and best-tasting strawberries are varieties that are not overbearing, but June-bearing. These have a shorter fruiting season but make up for it in flavor!
Some great varieties of June Bearing strawberries are Benton, Shuksan, and Early Crimson.
Another unique type of strawberry is the Alpine strawberry. These exceptional winter hardy plants bear heavily from June Through October. Although they produce no runners, plants will reseed to form a dense, edible groundcover. The fruit is small but very prolific and flavorful.
Some good alpine strawberry varieties re Rugen, White Alpine, and Mignonette.
Musk strawberries are considered one of the most delicious in the world, and they came from Italy. Astonishingly delicious and highly fragrant, these heirloom strawberries from Italy have fantastic flavor with hints of raspberry and pineapple. The sweet, soft fruits are rounder and smaller than more familiar strawberries, but they send out runners and make a very effective groundcover. Plants produce lightly for the first 2-3 years, they become very productive, cropping heavily, though briefly, in June. Raintree offers American gardeners male musk strawberries that should increase the production of Profumata and Capron, which generate mostly female flowers.
Good musk strawberry varieties include Profumata di Tortona, Capron, and remember you need a male musk strawberry as well for pollination!
Here are some strawberry growing tips:
Plant by April 15 to get a good crop the first year. Keep mulched with compost or manure. Plant one foot apart. One method is by poking plants through black plastic. Remove the first blossoms from the day neutrals. Remove the runners during the first season. Pruning off runners will give you larger berries.
Keep plants well watered if the summer is dry. Add soil amendments before planting. If the foliage turns light green in late July and August, this probably means your day neutral plants need a small addition of nitrogen to support their continuous-bearing habit. The June crop from the day neutrals will be light with small fruit. Expect heavy production from July through the summer and early fall.
Whenever you are going to buy strawberries plants online, they will often be delivered bareroot, in bundles. You can split up the bundles and plant the runners, they will take off if you treat them well!
