Fruit - Strawberry

Strawberry plants are perennials, but they stay green all year.

I used to try to grow full sized strawberries, but they took up a lot of room, and we never seemed to get much fruit. It also seemed wrong to buy strawberries if we grew our own. Eventually I got fed up with this, got rid of our strawberry plants, and bought as many shop strawberries as we wanted!

However, we do have little or wild strawberries. The plants were orginally grown from seed, and they've established themselves quickly. I grow them in the flower garden, as a border to the path. The plants are vigorous, and propagate themselves from runners. These are shoots coming out of one plant, and growing a tiny plant, complete with roots, at the end. This finds some new soil, and the roots grow into the soil, and you have a new plant. This is still connected to the original plant, but you can cut off this connection once the new plant has established itself. In fact, the plants spread themselves so well that at certain points of the year, I have to firmly remove all plants growing where I don't want them, and replant them when I do, or give them away, or throw them away.

These little strawberries are not heavily cropping. We don't get enough to make a serious dessert, although a few make a good garnish, on fool, for example. But it is a summer time treat, while walking down the garden, to pick and eat little strawberries straight from the plant. They seem to grow well in the flower garden, and make attractive plants. The fruiting season isn't very long, around early June.

Strawberry leaves in winter

Flowers

Fruit starting to form

Fruit

Fruit from the side

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