Favorite alpine strawberry varieties?

Hi,

I am going to be planting a lot of alpine strawberry varieties (from seed). I have grown a few over the years and they seem to avoid all the pests in southern California. The regular strawberries are heavy and end up on the dirt, where earwigs and sowbugs munch on them. In contrast my alpine strawberries are suspended in the air, safe from critters. They were very productive during our winters, not year round but close to it. They are small but that just means I need to plant more!

This study says you can get a pound per week off of 40 plants.
https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs1326

Now I am choosing varieties. At some point over the years I planted whatever was sold at my nursery - Regina, Alexandria, Mignonette, White Soul, Yellow Wonder, and a seedling of Pineapple Crunch. The problem is I did not keep track of what I planted where. Some were amazing, some were just so so. I think my favorites were Regina and Yellow Wonder but I am not 100% sure.

This time I am going to keep better track of my observations. For those who kept track, which varieties were your favorites? Thank you.

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My favorites were Regina and Baron Solemacher for reds and Yellow wonder for yellow. Over here I only get about three years out of the plants before they succumb to the summer humidity with the second year being the best, harvest wise.

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i agree regina and yellow wonder seem to be the best. i have about 30 grown from seed that i put out all over the yard. they are all over 12in across/ tall and very productive. i also got some wild strawberry seed i planted last year from the strawberry store, its a improved wild strawberry cultivar that has big berries. dont remember the name. should fruit for me this year. only thing about these berries is keeping up picking them as they produce constantly .

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I am also sowing a few different alpine strawberry’s. I am happy to read that i got seeds of your faforites :slight_smile:

I also have a few small plants of other wild strawberry’s.

I also have a smal collection of the “normal” hybrid modern strawberry. Of witch the pineapple white (slightly pink if overripe) and F.M.S (frau mieze schindler) Also have more of the wild feel and taste and growth habit. (they do make loads of runners)
Nowadays there a multiple white strawberry varieties. My favorite is the smaller fruited old pineberry. (made around 1750 if im not mistaken) The newer larger versions have tasteles fruits compared to the old one.

With alpines it’s less of a problem. But having different varieties with different ripening times is worth it.
I had to eat 3kg (6+ pounds) of strawberry’s in a single day past year. (poor me)


This was a little over 3 pounds. My dinner. Imagine eating this twice! in a single day.

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Oscar you should freeze those and use them for smoothies!

I have a white Alpine strawberry that I purchased from Edible Landscaping in Virginia. Does anyone know which variety that one may be? I don’t think they list it. Small elongated berries. I will try to find a picture of the berries later.

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Where did you find your pineberry? Is that ‘white D’ or an unnamed cultivar? I’ve been trying to find one. Does it pollinate with your regular strawberries?

I had to choose between 100+ rootstocks scions and other matirials to setup my frankentree espalier mini orchard. And a fancy freezer. The large freezer is certainly on my list. But for now ill have to manage with the little freezer i have. And to be honest eating fresh strawberry’s all day isen’t that bad :yum:

The pineberry came from a professional breeder (that also supply’s the industrial growers)
I think his source was NAK certified (NAK is the dutch certification/testing for plants and plant diseases organisation. But also trunes to type and breeders right trials. you might somtimes see NAK-B with rootstocks in the US (M9 most likely))

I also have a plant from an hobby breeder of old and rare varieties.
Both in europe though. So i am afraid thats of little help to you.
I know someone who bought a white temptation or some fancy name like that “pineberry” from the garden centre. The fruits where definitly larger. But tasted bad.
Both the “origional” pineberry and the F.M.S yield roughly 50-60% of my more modern varieties for me. They have larger and more healthy leafs though. Also make massive amount of runners. (My more modern varieties yielded close to 1kg a plant. 5 plants per m^2 ~11 sqft) grown outside in the backyard facing north. (semi shade)

I have never checked the pollination of the white strawberry. I however have 20+ strawberrys so don’t really need to worry about polination. I know the F.M.S has only female flowers. You can literaly see the male parts are missing in the flower. So that one definitly needs a pollinator.

The variety was sold as fragaria ananassa ananas. It was one of the first offspring of the hybrid cross that made the modern strawberry (ananassa in the fragaria ananassa). The parents are fragaria chiloenensis (spelling might be wrong) and the american fragaria virginia (spelling might be wrong). It was developed in or around 1750 i think in america.

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I like to dehydrate and make strawberry chips. So good!

The last place to sell White D was Burpee’s. They no longer sell them. If anybody finds them, let us know. I highly reccomend White D. It is the toughest strawberry plant I ever grew. When others die out it takes over. It’s all over my yard. You have to be on top of runners.
The berries are big for pineberries.

Yes. Fruit production is not a problem. Seems self fertile to me. It’s in areas where it is the only strawberry and all have fruit. I can root runners in trade for your runners. I’m willing to take any I don’t have. Looking for any red alpine. Runners would be available this fall, or next spring. Depending when you would prefer to plant.

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those chips look amazing. Do you freeze dry them? or air dry? at what temp or setup? And do you pick unripe? or are the overripe squishy extra sweet and tasty strawberry’s fine?

sorry for going a bit off topic.

i have pineberries i got from hartmanns. they look just like yours and runner like crazy. berries are medium and good. i have them growing next to my ac wendy and its a job to keep the 2 from sending runners into the other bed.

I have a dehydrator. They can be stored at room temp. But in case any are not not dry enough I freeze them in jars. They do not last long, they taste amazing and are quickly eaten.

No, the whole purpose of a home garden is to let them get ripe. Some red strawberries are red throughout, some are not! I’m guessing why you asked? All are very ripe! Even though they may look unripe, they are not. Pineberries are soft strawberries. My wife can’t stand them because of the soft texture. She prefers the traditional meaty firm strawberry.
They also are very aromatic! A lovely scent!

Sounds like white D, but even if not, they sound good! I tried others, and each pineberry cultivar has slightly different flavor. I had 4 or 5 different ones. I would grow them. Most died out on me. I think White D is all I have left? Same with alpines, except this unknown yellow (I tried many, and soon got lost in the shuffle) that survives. Man I sure would like to find a red like that!

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mine get a slight pink tinge to them when ripe. i sometimes have to pick slightly unripe as the damned stinkbugs love them also. the leaves have a neat blue/ green color with reddish stems. i have about 20 alpines and they grow like crazy in my clay soil. never need watering. hard to keep up with picking them sometimes. i let the neighbors kids have at them occasionally. theyre nice because they dont spread everywhere.

Another strawberry I really like are musk strawberries. The flavor is unique. The flavor is sort of alpine on crack! A grape like flavor my wife says.
Beautiful, and small. No need to replace plants, they produce for years and years.

The red seed is a giveaway it’s musk
Baker’s sells a good musk. Even though they don’t call it that.

I grow a deep red musk, I forget the cultivar? I have the Baker Creek Scarlet cultivar too. Both are excellent.

At 12 O’clock are the deep red musk from Raintree nursery, I think Profumata?
At 3 is Archer, at 9 are White D pineberries. At six o’clock are strasberries

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I have had Mignonette for several years. I like the berries, but mostly I have them because they do well as landscape plants here in partial shade and reseed like crazy. They’re the most cost effective groundcover for certain parts of my yard.

But I started growing several other varieties from seed last year. The plants are doing well, but they haven’t produced berries yet. Again, I didn’t plant them with eating the berries as the primary objective. I planted them to cover the bare soil in the containers where I grow my culinary ginger, turmeric, and galanga.

I ordered the seeds from the Strawberry Seed Store. They had a good variety of seeds for some of the more unusual strawberries and the service was very good.

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do the musk and strasberry runner? ive tried to get them from baker but theyre always out of stock. id buy a few of each from you if you have any to spare.

Musk yes, a little bit! The Baker Creek cultivar I have extra, crowding out my blueberry. I will include one or two with the yellow cap and Himbo Top. PM me when you can receive these plants.
Straberry not sure? I will keep an eye out!
A closer view of strasberry

A good comparison of size. Two musk strawberries in with the yellow alpines.

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Thanks for the info drew :slight_smile:

Nice pictures and strawberry’s!

Those musk strawberry’s. Is that by any chance a fragaria moschata. I think those are still really polular in france to.

Your strasberry is the same as what i call F.M.S (frau mieze schindler). You should really compare the flowers of it. If you got the “origional” it does not have male parts in the flowers. And needs a different strawberry nearby.
If it has male parts its a hybrid of F.M.S (frau mieze schindler) and an “normal” variety that they somtimes sell as framberry here. but has many different marketing names.
This strawberry was rejected by it’s breeded. Was destined for the compost pile. Until i think his gardener asked him to conserve it. The story goes that he named it after his wife. Translated to somthing cat. Might sound flatering, but aparantly it was a reference to how she sounded. Might not have been the nicest person. But he sure bred a great strawberry!

FMS or probably the same as what you cal strasberry

Fragaria ananassa ananas (1750) also called pineberry. It’s the smaller fruit historic super tasty version. Not the newer larger fruited one. As you can see, it can get quite pink

good crop, for a single plant :slight_smile:

If the strasberry is the non selffertile one. It’s the same as F.M.S And it makes a lot of runners. Out of my 20 ananassa varieties only the pineberry and 1 other make more runners than F.M.S/strasberry.

If it is the selffertile hybrid im not sure. But i can’t imagine it making no runners at all.

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Yes, but we have numerous cultivars that are quite different.

I’m not sure? But I think it is not fertile as advertised when I bought it. I have not paid that much attention to it. I will this spring.
Here is the description of the purchase
The Strasberry or Fragaria × ananassa ‘Mieze Schindler’ - is a variety of the garden strawberry, with a raspberry-like appearance, originally developed by the German breeder Otto Schindler in 1925. It is not a hybrid of the two fruits. It is similarly soft textured, with characteristics that are similar to raspberries, such as being a deeper red, being rounder and having a bumpy exterior. They are also smaller than an average garden strawberry and have deeper seeds. Unlike other garden strawberry varieties ‘Mieze Schindler’ produces no fertile pollen and will need a pollinator. Despite its much-valued flavor the variety was threatened by extinction but plants survived in amateur gardens in the former German Democratic Republic until they were reintroduced as a commercial variety by a Dutch farmer in the twenty-first century.[3] Since 2013 it is marketed under the new trade name Framberry.

Here is info on the White D Oh it is not everbearing, it is summer bearing. At the time they were not sure here in the USA.
White D pineberries were developed in Sweden and have a bright future. There is the possibility that the genetic traits that dictate strawberry production have endowed this variety with everbearing properties. Should that prove true as testing continues over the next few years, this variety would likely become the most preferred one, at least until superior cultivars are developed. Another positive factor in favor of this pineberry is its fruit size. While still considered small, its berries are generally larger than the pineberries of the other available varieties. The aroma of this variety of pineberry is exceptional and the pineapple flavor is mild.

I can attest they are very aromatic and smell wonderful. The more sun they get the pinker they are. these were shaded for the most part.

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thanks. probably end of april i can put them out if theyre dormant. maybe dig them before they leaf out and put in the fridge till then?

the musks are pretty big. do they produce as good as the alpines?