Topic: Strawberry plants

[elhuerto]

I bought some raspberry canes from an ebay seller and they arrived quickly, good price and appear healthy. The same seller has some bare root strawberry plants - has anybody ever grown any of the following and have any comments....

Cambridge Favourite
Sophie
Elsanta

I might just get a selection of all of them but would be interested in any feedback.

Cheers!

[no-lottie]

Wise move asking for feedback, as it can be a wasted effort if you grow them from the Runner stage only to find you don't like them

[Digitalis]

Cambridge are an old favourite and widely grown. Flavour is probably aroun 7/10.

Elsanta are much tastier, at least to my tastebuds.

Bare root runners have always grown well for me.

[elhuerto]

Thanks Digitlalis, that's good to know - cheers!

[landimad]

I got given a load of plants from an older gardener(no name varieties) but they have served me well and now we have plenty of runners to fall back on for the coming years ahead.

[Digeroo]

I have some Cambridge Favourite.  Seems to depend on the soil.  Mine have been great.  Good tasting fruit, quite acidic in comparison to others but I actually like that.  Produced very good runners so loads more plants for next year.  Personally I do not like Elsanta at all very sweet but no bite. 

For me its CF 9/10 and El 4/10.

I bought barerooted last year and they did well, ate a few fruits off each plant but took off most of the flowers looking forward to more next year. 

[goodlife]

I think all strawberries taste yummy if folk just let them ripen up properly. ::) Time and time again I see people picking their berries when they still have white 'tip'...sugars don't develop properly untill the berry is properly red.
I just bought some from Mr Fothergill's in offer ..£2.95 for 12 plants of Royal Sovereign and some Mara Des Bois and Gariquette..
MDB's are really nice..you don't get huge crops at once but the cropping time is longer..sort of 'little and ofter' crops which I like ;D

[onionsquash]

Cambridge Favourite is a an old variety but has stood the test of time because it is reliable and good flavour. Elsanta is, or was, the most widely grown commercially - don't let that put you off, tastes Ok straight from the garden, and its an early main crop. Sophie is a modern hybrid with good quality fruit and a late cropper, so a combo of Elsanta and Sophie would give a good spread of fruit. Hope that helps.

[elhuerto]

Thanks, I've just asked the seller for a discount on postage for bulk buying. It's difficult to get "named" varieties of any soft fruits here - they're labelled as strawberry, raspberry etc but no indication of variety.

Just a follow up question, I assume it's best to put them into pots before plating out - it's still pretty cold here with nightly frosts and my unheated greenhouse is no warmer than the outside at night.

[tricia]

I have a dozen new plants in pots - made from runners last year. When should I plant them out?

Tricia

[Digeroo]

Strawberry plants are pretty touch cookies.  I think they can cope with the cold they are not so keen on being soggy.   I feel sure that it is much colder here than with you Elhuerto.  (Just realised that  huerta is the spanish for allotment).  All of my plants are outside and most still have leaves on them.  Those that do not were eaten by deer and not affected by the cold and it was -13 C here over Xmas. 

[elhuerto]

Just been down to the allotment to feed the chickens, it's -5º this morning - last Sunday it was 16ºC, it's typically all over the place temperature wise here in Winter. El huerto does indeed mean the allotment in Spanish, hort in Catalan and the old boys greet me with shouts of hortelano (allotmenteer) but I think that might be ironic  ::)

[Robert_Brenchley]

Presumably that derives from the Latin hortus, a garden.

[chriscross1966]

Thanks, I've just asked the seller for a discount on postage for bulk buying. It's difficult to get "named" varieties of any soft fruits here - they're labelled as strawberry, raspberry etc but no indication of variety.

Just a follow up question, I assume it's best to put them into pots before plating out - it's still pretty cold here with nightly frosts and my unheated greenhouse is no warmer than the outside at night.

Find a source of cheap jerrycans or similar, paint them black if they aren't already and fill with water... put in GH, coldest nights tend to follow sunny days so during the day the black cans absorb heat well and warm up the water, which then releases it at night....

[Digeroo]

I would also expect the day length to be an issue for Strawberries they have bread types which are more happy further south.  So I would expect Elsanta to be a better choice than Cambridge Favourite for growing in Spain, though it was breed in Holland, so a specific Spanish variety might be called for.  For short day lenght strawberries you would perhaps need to source Festival or Red Merlin which are currently in the supermarkets from Egypt.   

[gazzaroo]

we have only had arr allotment for just over a year now and i started with some i got off internet and they have grown well,,we put some in used paint pots the 10 lte ones. we put the in ar make shift pollytunnal ,,we were till picking them off in November..