which are the tastiest?

[thewoodle]

My mum wants to start growing strawberries. She asked me which is the best variety to grow, so I'm asking you which you think are the tastiest (strawberry obviously)???
Thanks! :)

[thewoodle]

[markfield rover]

I find alpine strawbs are very tasty, the ones the French cover most of their tarts in!
plus the budgies do not eat them, win,win.

[Melbourne12]

Of the varieties that we've tried, Mara Des Bois is the nicest.  It's a so-called perpetual strawberry, which in our case seems to mean mostly late summer.  It's also a good robust plant.

[dtw]

Don't buy the ones you get in the supermarket, as they are tasteless.
The supermarkets only sell them because they keep better.
I think they are called Elsanta???

I'm growing Alpine from seed, they are only a few mm high so far.

[antipodes]

I have Mara des Bois, and I have eaten them before and it is true they are a delicious strawberry, they are only just flowering now so will wait for fruit. Lots of people here rave about Gariguette strawbs but frankly I find them a bit overrated.
Otherwise the ones that are giving fruit right now are Cijosée, a French variety, I planted them on March 5 and they are now fruting, so far I have had about 20 fruit (well, it is a start, from 10 plants). They are very tasty, lovely and sweet with a fresh scent. They were supermarket strawberries! But I am very pleased with them and hope they will give me runners so I can grow even more! I love strawberries!

[thewoodle]

Thanks for your replies, Alpine... does that mean they can be treated like alpine plants (grow in the same conditions)? -Sorry if that's a stupid question...

[Tora]

I love alpine strawberries as well but my OH isn't too keen on them. I think alpine ones tend to be less sweet but more fragrant.
I grew my alpine strawberries from seeds and they grew quickly and gave me loads of fruits in the first year.  :)

I grew Sarian (from seeds) last year but they were so slow to grow (still tiny after over a year)... However I got one fruit and it was so sweet!

[antipodes]

I think that the alpine bit is just because they are a different type - they are elongated, if i remember rightly? But i am fairly sure that you grow them like any other strawberry (like, you don't need to be up a mountain, ha ha).

[Melbourne12]

I suspect that even the dreaded Elsanta would be nice if allowed to ripen properly on the plant.  The reason we despise supermarket strawbs is because they're picked before they're ready and "ripened" artificially.

One can see the problem.  Try picking some home-grown strawberries when they're nice'n'ripe, put them in a punnet, and drive them round in the boot of your car for 24 hours, as a simple approximation to the supermarket supply chain.

Strawberry puree, anyone?

[thewoodle]

Thanks for all the useful info! I'll pass it on to my mum. I agree about the supermarket-strawberry-transport-thing. I remember seeing this program where they showed how the strawberries had to be able to bounce to be suitable for the supermarket! ::)

[manicscousers]

ours are marsh mello and a new one this year, honeyeye..we've started eating the marsh mello, beautiful, just a hint of tan, can't wait 'til the honeyeye start  ;D

[cambourne7]

my stawberrys have all come from other peoples cuttings and i have zero idea what they are   ;D.

[tomatoada]

I have grown Royal Sovereign for years and I have never tasted a strawberry as delicious as these.  I believe they are quite hard to find.

[Lauren S]

Fothergill's sell Royal Sovereign but they are all sold out. Worth noting for next year though.
Lauren  :D

[saddad]

Cambridge favourite are well thought of as well...
most varieties taste so much better freshly picked!
;D

[weedgrower]

i grow hapil and would recomend them to anybody as they are very very tasty, particularly when just picked and warmed by the sun a little, along with half a bucket of freshly picked peas. you cant beat it, its the highlight of the year for me

[pigeonseed]

I'm not sure about the ripening thing - I've done strawberry picking quite a lot and we had to pick the even shaped, large fruit for supermarket punnets and the smaller and uneven ones could go to markets.

We got more money for supermarket punnets. But we only picked ripe strawberries.