Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Experimental strawberries

Along with about half the rest of the nation, our mailbox was clogged with gardening catalogs in January. I seldom order anything anymore -- we have most of our garden seeds already, thanks to Victory Seeds -- but one thing caught my eye: Pineberries.


The catalog blurb said these are a naturally hybridized strawberry with a creamy-white appearance which taste something like pineapple. We love strawberries and have many beds of them in the garden, so a couple extra beds of a different type would be intriguing. "Do they really taste like pineapple?" asked the young man taking my phone order. "We'll find out, won't we?" I replied.

The plants arrived over the weekend, so I got ready to plant them as soon as we had a break in the rain.



The nice part about having a large garden is the ability and room to have unusual varieties. I had already cleared out a couple of tires near the other strawberry beds, so it was fast work to get these pineberries planted.


I spread them out across the bed first, to space them.


It didn't take long to slip them into the dirt. They won't do much for the next couple of weeks, but if the success of the other strawberry beds is any indication, we'll have a small crop this summer and then bumper crops thereafter.


If anyone has experience with pineberries, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

9 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. Patrice this guys link is spam. His post is just click bait.

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    2. Thanks, Cathy. I removed it

      - Patrice

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  2. Keep us updated on the Pineberries!

    I tried some a few years ago (zone 5B for what its worth). They grew well enough, but I ended up pulling the plants. The berries didn't taste bad, but I didn't like them nearly as much as I'd hoped and prefered to save the space for regular strawberries. However I'm not 100% sure I was picking them fully ripe either.....

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    1. From what I've read, they are ripe when the seeds turn dark.

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  3. Your strawberries are enviable. Nice work.

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  4. I need to relearn gardening as we moved from Michigan to rural Kansas this past year. It's amazing the different soil! Good luck with your strawberries!

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    1. Not sure about MI, but KS is sand, sand, and more sand in the area I live in. It sucks up compost like a sponge, and in a year it disappears. We've had a battle for almost 40 years. BUT we still got enough canned to last nearly a year, until the critters attacked the last three gardens. We were lucky to get a combined 30 qts of everything in it's entirety.

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    2. Have you tried biochar? This is basically charcoal from organic sources (some bagged charcoal is actually made from COAL). It's fairly simple to make in small batches yourself, just make a wood fire and douse it with water when the coals break apart easily. The biochar works very well in conjunction with compost and does not break down for centuries.

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