Topic: sweetness

[ACE]

When you take that first guilty bite of the strawberries each season you cannot believe the sweetness compared with the supermarket offerings. But Yesterday my wife stated they were not as sweet as the earlier ones. I had to agree, but are they losing sweetness or have we had too many over the last couple of weeks. I expect you are all the same and have had a bumper crop this year, jam, frozen, dehydrated, cannot store anymore, we are just giving them away now, just keeping a few fresh ones and there are still a few weeks of cropping to go yet. I expect I will take the nets off sometime this week and give the wild birds a feed. So are they coming so fast that the taste is dropping, I know the size is smaller now and quite a few misshapes happening.

[squeezyjohn]

It's the same for me this year ... I think weather has a lot to do with it ... it may have been warm earlier on in the spring, but the amount of sugar formed in the strawberry fruits is governed by the temperature of the fruit itself, it hasn't been that warm in the last week or so ... and most strawberries I've seen still have very lush leaf growth which shades out the strawberries beneath keeping them cool.

[squeezyjohn]

You should really give some of the everbearing varieties a go ... the farm crops like Elsanta just give a big crop in June and tend to stop.  I have a bed of Mara des Bois which is an everbearing variety ... they give a big June crop, but last year carried on flowering and making decent fruit through to October!

[BarriedaleNick]

Just thinking the same thing last night as I was picking raspberries - they are not that sweet or flavoursome.  In jam they are fine but they should be great from the branch and they aren't.  There are tons of them though.

[Tee Gee]

I think lack of moisture due to the lack of rain in May may be a reason.

[squeezyjohn]

I just made the sourest raspberry coulis ever from fruit that looked and behaved as if completely ripe.  Good for Tate & Lyle's profits, but not much more!

[johhnyco15]

here on the sunshine coast its one of the dryest parts of the country indeed 2 miles away st osyth has less rainfall than anywhere anyway its not unusual for us to have to water tender crops and newly planted seedlings from march in all we have had 1 full day and 3 nights of rain since march the 8th however i dont water any established crops from fruit to lettuce although my raspberries are in general a week or so later than most in the south east sweetness is not an issue might it be that those parts of the country that are not used to such conditions are suffering as the fruit is ripening too early so the complex sugars did not have time to form just a thought

[brownthumb2]

 Mine in the gardens the same not so sweet  My partner remarked on it and left them all for me what a same lol  But the ones in the Polytunnel and green house is very sweet  All runners from the out side ones