IMO pine berries are not as good as red strawberries but if you do grow them you almost have to let them grow overripe. They’re more fragrant but less flavorful imo
I have “wonderful” pine berries and they only get flavor when they’re very soft and ripe. When I pull them off the stem it leaves a hole where the stem was (like raspberries)
I just bought them as generic pineberries. They’re very sweet and aromatic way more than regular strawberries and they have some pineapple to it but to me a very ripe (they have to be nearly overripe) tastes like strawberry candy. That said I don’t particularly like them because the fruits are small, you can only pick them at their ripest and they consequently only last 1 day max. On top of that they produce runners like you can’t believe and take over your regular strawberries in no time.
I think the reason why the store bought ones don’t taste good is that they’re probably picked too early when they still taste bland and they artificially ripened, thus lacking flavor. Not sure but that’s my guess. It’s similar with store bought plums, they taste terrible.
I have a hybrid, I believe an accidental cross, it has all the traits of pineberry and also the taste, red seeds, white flesh but has a red color on the outside and doesn’t produce many or barely any runners. I took seeds of this one and trying to see what the offspring will be, I couldn’t use runners as it didn’t have any oddly enough. I probably will try to hybridize them again with regular red strawberries because it’s hard to determine when they’re ripe because they stay partly white on the outside. Anyway a fun experiment.
I got a nicely ripe sweet sunrise today from new plants that I missed a few flowers on. It was better than the average strawberry. I have higher hopes for these. Some strawberry notes- Second round of tristar flowering isn’t making very good strawberries, hope they get better in the fall or next year. Unimpressed with red flowering summer breeze and Tristan right now for flavor. Plants are beautiful though. Real earliglows clearly need the year to grow since they were planted rather late; the ones I missed pulling aren’t very good. Flavorfest are done- sad. But will have 4 times more of these plants next year! Tributes are starting up again in full force. They are extremely productive plants.
I’m being more selective and harsh about runners this year. Last year I had hundreds that rooted themselves and 85 I intentionally rooted, and it was a disaster of strawberry plants by fall. Everyone who came to my house for anything had to leave with strawberry plants! This year, I’ve spent a lot of time here and there cutting off runners, pulling runners and selecting which ones to intentionally root or to let root. I’m focusing on Flavorfest with a few galleta and just a few others.
After having Cabrillo and San Andreas this year, I have to say they’re up they when they’re happy.
I may have forgotten to uppot these last year but they’re growing through everything.
I’m tempted to get rid of or plant them for wildlife:
Seascape, Tristar, Tribute, all Pineberry family lol, Eversweet, and others
Sweet Berry doesn’t create runners except on Berry rare occasions.
All the new mounding type strawberries create sweeter berries than the old varieties I’ve tried/have but the berries are no bigger than 1.5-1.75 inches wide at the shoulders at most.
For June bearing, Denali has a unique flavor when fully ripe as well that’s worth a keep somewhere.
Keepers and observations:
Charlotte: ripens/sweetens in the cold and under cloudy skies as well. Also first to sweeten up at just 3.5 after turning red, even in the cold/rain/ cloudy stretch. 5th year Charlottes are outsizing previous year’s fruits.
Cabrillo and San Andreas are almost exact except for small size variation and shape. Large flavorful too
My special one: biggest for size but takes a little bit longer to sweeten up than all the others. Will not sweeten up in the cloudy stretch.
Sweet Kiss: smaller than Charlotte but more productive and good too.
Cleaning up their old growth from the previous years, gently so that you don’t harm the plant, makes them a TON happier overall.
Big flush Flowers - fruit - runner flush - fruit ripens - runners start to try to root - big flush flowers - fruit… the cycle is this for my runner makers with smaller amount of flowers in between the cycles as well.
I’m kind of new to growing strawberries, but it looks to me like everbearing just means two crops early and late. Is that just the varieties I’m growing or is that the way it works?
Those are the old fashion everbearings. These days, the newer varieties are termed “day neutral” and will flush out fruit and flowers every 2-3 weeks until late into the fall. I had 2 varieties a while ago that only did 2 flushes of fruit but I got rid of them. Don’t remember which varieties. There’s been so many updates in the strawberry breeding world for disease resistance, hardiness, and fruit set that except for a very few varieties for flavor, the older varieties are nearly obsolete. I had some seeds of a variety that started with a G, Gaviota? That had terrible resistance to powdery mildew and it all died from mildew at tiny starts but the flavor from the fruits were good. However I’ve found other varieties with similar flavors now to what i remember that have gotten 0 diseases so far so I stopped searching for that variety.
I’ve got Ozark Beauty, Quinault, and added Eversweet this year. Just bought what the local shop was selling. Are they not good varieties?
Ozark Beauty and Quinault are old-fashioned everbearing varieties with two crops; Eversweet is a day-neutral variety that I grew one year. It had an OK flavor but was very disease-prone in my garden; so I got rid of it.
They’re okay but i prefer the newer varieties overall. A lot of people still like those and not a lot know about the newer varieties/names so the older ones are easier to market and sell. It’s all preference really. I just had a girl come over and told me that my Eversweets were the best strawberries in my patch but everyone has different taste buds 
i thought they were subpar but that’s me.
Also a lot of things get mislabeled along the way cause my Eversweets produce all season too. Quinalt did only twice a season for me in the past and same with Ozark until i got another ozark that did all season.
i have 2 4’ x 12 raised beds with flavorfest, and ozark beauty and tristar planted in cheap 2’ x 2’ washtubs from family dollar for $4 ea.. they work suprisingly well and dont use too much soil. i have some 5 yrs old and still holding together. i put 3 plants in each one.
Denali sounds interesting! I’m learning I don’t like the super intense classic strawberry flavor, anything that tastes like artificial strawberry or strawberry candy. Should I try Denali?
My June-bearing strawberries are done producing. Should I fertilize them now? Is it the right time?
I would assume it would give them energy to store for next season? I’m not too deep into June bearing types though…
Eh… it tastes like candy to me haha. I like natural candy? It’s sweet but also like, hard to explain. It’s still a strawberry but unique?
First time I am finally getting a decent amount of strawberries! I have got to pick a couple handfulls of pineberry. I have a picture of the biggest here. I have the Mara des Bois, Charlotte, Tribute(?), and one other type I don’t remember at the moment.
Tristar, pretty sure i gave you tribute and Tristar as well as possibly Charlotte? Maybe evie-2
Tribute! That is it! You gave me Mara (mostly), and one each of Tribute and Charlotte. 
I bought the different ‘cant remember name’ red one from somewhere else. It is so-so.
Strawberries with the type of white cheese that breaks up into pieces and honey. It is sooo good. This is the new British blueberry cheese from Costco that comes as a waxed wheel. I had no idea this cheese was this type of cheese and it didn’t fit with anything else until something in me said put it with fruit.
Also I found a really happy Tristar plant and the fruits are actually really sweet. Medium sized fruit though but still good. I’m thinking i need to dig up and just repot a lot of my older plants now. I repotted and refreshed a lot of my older plants and they’re super happy after about a week. I have some 4-6 year old plants still going strong too.
I’ve noticed evie-2 likes to make goldfish shaped strawberries 
my ozark beauty in wash tubs are starting to fruit as well as flavorfest. both very good. had some in yogurt with aurora and indigo gem honeyberries.
Production has really been ramping up both here and at my community garden plot. Pest pressure is down as well; not sure if the sluggo+ kicked in or the heat shoed the slugs, pillbugs, and earwigs away. Or both. Either way, we’ve finally been eating strawberries
I think I’ve decided my mystery plants are Elan and Tristar and that I like them better than the Albions and sweet kiss I have at home. But the mystery plants are two or three years old (ie better established) and all of the home strawbs have marginal light, especially the Albion. The albs in my plot get all day sun and are notably larger and sweeter, and more eaten by slugs and pill bugs.
Had a nice visitor last night here too
