They’re from a company called Root pouch. I bought something like 1000 at one time for a couple hundred dollars. They’ve been kicking around for years at this point on our property. In a way I’ll be glad when they’re gone but they do come in handy. It’s an air pruning type pouch, they work well for vegetables and small seedling trees
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How do you deal with slugs with non June bearers? (June bearers are plentiful enough some of them survive but my Maras get almost 100% destroyed when they ripen in August or September) Are there any varieties that are a bit more resistant to predation? June bearers that are less soft or grow more upright seem to do better but the day neutral/everbearing ones seem more vulnerable.
I’m next to a creek and the summers are cool enough the slugs never stop. It’s slug paradise so control is not possible (they’ll make their way even into containers and get to fruit that’s off the ground). Bagging the fruit works but is obviously not ideal 
I’m using sluggo as well as letting the soil dry out a bit. You can use beer too but make sure you change out the cup almost daily or its gonna smell like some type of dying animal
Is it common for the random June bearer to bloom and make some summer berries? A few earliglow plants flowered and berried…
Following up- about 1/4 of my earliglow plants are making berries. And they’re really good. Should I be thinking these strawberries were mislabeled? Can June bearers do this as the days shorten? Whatever they are, they’re better than my other two types…
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Someone messaged me asking for tips… i dont really have any as im just a hobbyist myself. But i have had the best results fertilizing my strawbs only in the early to mid Fall…after they are done producing.
Does anyone else have better results by fertilizing in the Spring instead of Fall? Or do you have better results fertilizing in the Fall instead of Spring?
OTOH for propagating if that is your thing or want to… fertilizing with N in the spring and summer gives more runners and less fruit. At least thats how it works for me here.
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My trial this year concludes:
Albion - best for home commercial type. Big fruits, sweet, great color, a little on the commercial hard side too so may ship better
Charlotte - just slightly sweeter but sweetens up quicker than Albion overall. Softer side, may not ship as well
new runner up this year:
Sweetkiss
Despite all the deer, this one when allowed to not be defoliated and fully ripen, is also very good. Has a distinct flavor to it as well that’s very subtle but slightly different from the above.
My goal next year is to stop the deer from defoliating everything, every day.
I have not been able to go home for the last 2 months so i apologize to those I’ve promised plants to. Some things happened which have prevented me from seeing my plants. I still am not able to go home yet.
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Bubblegum berry - everbearing musk strawberry but very shy bearer overall. And very small berries. They do taste great though!
Pineberry - extreme novelty…
Yellow wonder alpine - a lot better than pineberries if you’re looking for yellow strawberries. +1 for being everbearing as well.
I have no idea what i may do with the bunnies… i may install a doggy door so my dogs can chase to their hearts content when i have my property secured but my dogs are bigger than me so that may be a human issue…
Finally got a good tasting mara des bois plant. Oddly enough, it was a gift from berries unlimited and it does not taste like my mara from migardener even though it acts and looks like it.
Word is still out on the Albion upgrades since i got them last year and the deer really just ate everything every night and because not afraid of me or my dogs by month 2 which… made me afraid of them…
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I am also learning as I go with deck strawberries. My experience was similar in that my June and Ever did great until the summer heat set in. I might set up a shade area for the Evers for 2026. Thanks for confirming what went wrong with my everbearing strawberries.
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Well, with just one season, I’m not sure my experience confirms much, but I’m sorry you had a similar experience. I built pvc netted cages over my deck beds to keep out the animals and had planned on attaching shade cloth to those, but it didn’t seem relevant until it was too late. Since the spring and beginning of summer berries were fine, I’m going to see if the Albion’s will fruit nicely in spring, and then I’ll switch them out in the fall.
Planted a new strawberry bed, containers and runners all around, so we are crossing our fingers for lots of berries next year! In the meantime, my kids found a use for some strawberry leaves when I wasn’t looking.
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PSA Hirts has some strawberries on super extra sale. In the cart they’re more discounted than the advertised price. In the past, they haven’t held plants to ship for me, but they agreed to today. Dangers of a long boring drive…I ordered more yellow wonder and white Carolina to try.
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what strawberries have the deepest roots? My dog pees in the strawberry patch occasionally nad it completely murders my wild types but their roots are soooo shallow. I know just dont let her pee there. not as easy as youd think! strong preference toward everbearing, not a huge strawberryfan, this is mostly for ground cover in part of my yard and im hoping it helps protect the native ones
They all have about 12-20 inches of roots once established and in decent soil. If the soil is too compact, their roots may have issues getting lower but overall, I’ve found most of all of my plants to have roots a little over 12 inches with the finer roots going down to a few inches more
How long does it take them to get estavlished ?
@melon did you get any Tristan strawberries last year to comment on flavor? I’m interested in getting a pink flowered variety for fun.
can anyone comment on the taste of any pink flowered varieties? Toscana, Tristan, strawberry breeze, whatever else? Add gasana to that list
Disconnected: I finally looked up earliglow to see if anyone on the internet has reported it flowering and fruiting late summer and fall, and I can’t find anything. About half of mine (purchased from Starks) fruited like an everbearing. They were conical, medium sized and totally delicious. I thought they had a distinct neck, but can’t find a picture of them showing it. Any guesses as to what they might be if not earliglow? They were our favorite. My guesses right now are all star, eversweet or elan.
in case anyone’s looking for cheap strawberries, in my search I found that Jackson and Perkins sells 20/$9
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I liked Tristan a bit 
Strawberry breeze is also a favorite of mine as well. They’re really sweet too but they don’t do runners so it can be difficult to get more of them from the same plant.
If they and like everbearing from stark, it could be Tristar, Tribute, or Albion. Eversweet is more 2x bearing, earliglo is once, Elan is small and more round in shape. Eversweet has a low growing profile in terms of leaves as well. If there’s medium sized to big and conical at the end then it’s probably one of the three I listed.
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Interesting, thank you!
My not-earliglow are smaller than my Albion and more interesting. I don’t love Albion, found them a bit too boring strawberry. Stark bros is being nice, and I’ll send them bloom and fruit pictures to see if they can ID it and then they’ll send me earliglow. I have tribute as well, so maybe I can rule that one in or out this spring.
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I planted a few Tristar (sourced from edible landscapes not starks though) late-ish (end of May) last season and they grew in an upright, kind of bushy habit -no runners this first year while establishing despite the vigorous growth), and produced medium (some bordering medium-largish) sized conical strawberries that are excellent. This plant kept putting out strawberries until after repeated frosts finally got all the blooms.
The berries I grew are notably softer than anything you’d find at a supermarket and you have to be gentle holding more than a few in your hand at a time or risk bruising/squishing them a little (they are even softer than MdB I believe for reference).
Not sure if this is helpful, but it’s the little info I can contribute regarding the above named varieties. (Though keep in mind my experience is limited to only 4-5 months of growing season/production so far).
…edit: I looked in case I took any pictures of it but didnt have any good ones to illustrate what they look like I’m afraid. I also seem to recall the seeds are more inclined to not be recessed into the skin of the berries on these compared to a lot of strawberries ive seen that do have recessed seeds, but can’t swear to it as it appears I neglected to note that in my notes.
Thank you. I don’t think they are tristar then. These not-earliglow made a million runners. Perhaps eversweet or All star. We’ll see when they fruit and what they look like this year when established! At least they’re a delicious mystery.
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Would a tube of hardware cloth lined with burlap (and maybe wool) work as a strawberry planter? holes down and around it for the plants. It would essentially be a root pruning tower. Any obvious reason that would fail?
I’m looking for other simple, small footprint, vertical planter ideas to build using what I have/minimal purchases. Planters for places where I have no room for planters. Not interested in growing in PVC. Stacked pots/bags are too wide. Saw a metal duct idea, but concerned that will get scorching hot in the sun. Already planning 2 cedar plank towers. Has anyone done anything else?
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I traded for Guardian, Ogallala, and Cardinal. Not much out there other than nursery desciptions.. anyone have any experience with any of them?
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