Alpine strawberries are awesome
Two years ago, back in 2020 Part 1, I got ahold of a couple of alpine strawberry plants--Fragaria vesca, a different species from the big garden strawberries. They stay in nice little clumps about a foot wide and don't send out runners, so they're easy to grow in pots and would make a nice edging for a path or patio. They can be divided and allegedly grow true from seed, so you can make new plants fairly easily. The berries are small, about finger-tip sized, and incredibly sweet and flavorful when they're perfectly ripe.
And they fruit continuously as long as the weather agrees with them. Lucky for me, in my area, this means basically year round! (I'm in USDA Zone 9b and Sunset Zone 14, with winter low temperatures of around 35 degrees Fahrenheit (never lower than about 25 degrees) and summer highs of 100 to 110, and my patio has morning shade due to the building blocking the sun and very late afternoon shade due to the fence.) The strawberries don't much like those 110 degree days, but are flowering and fruiting nicely this January, and supposedly survive even if it gets way below freezing. For once, truth in advertising: "alpine" makes them sound cold-hardy, and they are. You'll never get huge masses of strawberries from these, but you can get constant strawberries, which is pretty great.
My two plants are the "Improved Rugen" variety. I've ordered seeds for "Golden Alexandria" (which has nice golden-green leaves) and "White Delight" (which has white berries), so we'll see if I can successfully turn them into plants. Then I'll add them to my patio border along with the first divisions of my original plants, and dig out the strawberry pot I have in the shed and see if I can keep it moist enough through our bone-dry summers to grow anything. Hopefully, I'll have masses of tiny strawberries by fall, enough to share with the birds and slugs.
If I can convince the squirrels to stop digging up every square inch of visible dirt, especially those near plant roots, that is. (Squirrels, I promise you did not bury any walnuts in the mint pot, and definitely not under the helpless baby strawberry plant or the baby Corsican violet. Please stop relocating all the baby plants.) More reason to see if I can get ahold of some Santa Barbara daisies and other ground cover plants to fill in the gaps.
So there's something to look forward to as we begin 2020 Part 3! If you need a compact, relatively low-fuss plant which will give you at least a tiny bit of fruit, give alpine strawberries a try.
Anyone else have a favorite tiny but reliable and delicious plant?
And they fruit continuously as long as the weather agrees with them. Lucky for me, in my area, this means basically year round! (I'm in USDA Zone 9b and Sunset Zone 14, with winter low temperatures of around 35 degrees Fahrenheit (never lower than about 25 degrees) and summer highs of 100 to 110, and my patio has morning shade due to the building blocking the sun and very late afternoon shade due to the fence.) The strawberries don't much like those 110 degree days, but are flowering and fruiting nicely this January, and supposedly survive even if it gets way below freezing. For once, truth in advertising: "alpine" makes them sound cold-hardy, and they are. You'll never get huge masses of strawberries from these, but you can get constant strawberries, which is pretty great.
My two plants are the "Improved Rugen" variety. I've ordered seeds for "Golden Alexandria" (which has nice golden-green leaves) and "White Delight" (which has white berries), so we'll see if I can successfully turn them into plants. Then I'll add them to my patio border along with the first divisions of my original plants, and dig out the strawberry pot I have in the shed and see if I can keep it moist enough through our bone-dry summers to grow anything. Hopefully, I'll have masses of tiny strawberries by fall, enough to share with the birds and slugs.
If I can convince the squirrels to stop digging up every square inch of visible dirt, especially those near plant roots, that is. (Squirrels, I promise you did not bury any walnuts in the mint pot, and definitely not under the helpless baby strawberry plant or the baby Corsican violet. Please stop relocating all the baby plants.) More reason to see if I can get ahold of some Santa Barbara daisies and other ground cover plants to fill in the gaps.
So there's something to look forward to as we begin 2020 Part 3! If you need a compact, relatively low-fuss plant which will give you at least a tiny bit of fruit, give alpine strawberries a try.
Anyone else have a favorite tiny but reliable and delicious plant?