Leonie Cornelius on the sweetest taste of summer
Top tips on how to get the best from your strawberry plants
Ilove watching my garden change through the seasons. Summer, now finally, firmly here, is always well and truly announced by the ripening of my strawberry plants. I do love my raspberries, growing so plentifully you have to chase the growth, and the tart gooseberries which are so perfect for jam. Later in the year there are the blueberries which I can never resist eating straight from the bush, but yet there is something so quintessentially summer about strawberries. They always put a smile on my face. From the little wild variety that grows in our native hedgerows, to the French fraises des bois – a stunningly sweet variety that has no compare in flavour – there are plenty of options to choose from.
The Latin name for the strawberry plant is Fragaria, of which there are about 20 varieties. The berry, as we know it today, was first bred in Brittany, northern France in the 1750s and was a cross between the eastern North American Fragaria virginiana and the Chilean Fragaria chiloensis. Apart from being a popular source of fruit, wild strawberries have been used since ancient times for many different reasons.
In Roman literature the strawberry’s medicinal uses, such as treating depression, were mentioned. For me, strawberries signify summer and sunshine and certainly have mood-lifting qualities in that sense! Apart from eating them straight from the plant, I love the idea of making something a little more unusual with the fruit, such as strawberry wine, which apparently has been brewed since the 1800s.
Research strongly suggests that organically grown strawberries can have more flavour than ordinary ones, and I believe that is true, from having grown my own. Though it is possible to grow the plants from seed, the easier option is definitely growing them by runners. My own plants grow fantastic runners each year.
Every few years I replant the runners as sometimes the plants need replacing. I have given many of these runners as gifts, planted into little sprayed tins with ribbon, – which is a lovely idea.
If you decide to grow some strawberries in your own garden, there are a few vital tips that will help you achieve a delicious and healthy crop. First of all, strawberries need lots of light; in fact, it has been said that reducing the light by half also halves the flavour, so get them into direct sunlight if you can. Also, try to position them in a place that isn’t too windy, to make the honeybees’ job of pollinating them easier. I also love planting bee-friendly plants near mine such as lavender, nepeta and salvia, which not only look great but are big draw for bees.
If you are planting them out in the garden, keeping the fruit off the ground is a good starting point, as this means the fruit is out of direct reach of slugs, which can destroy every fruit on the plant overnight! The name strawberry gives a clue to the fact that you can use straw to keep the fruit off the ground. You could plant strawberries in raised beds or containers where they are easy to keep an eye on, and this also means you can grow this yummy fruit regardless of whether you have a large garden or just a balcony.
When it comes to choosing soil, research suggests that straw berries prefer to be grown in something slightly acidic. So if your soil isn’t acidic, you could plant them in a container with some peat-free ericaceous compost.
If you’ve gone to the trouble of self-seeding or planting organic strawberries then you’ll also want to use an organic fertiliser to get delicious fruit. Comfrey brew is fantastic for this. The leaves are fermented in a bucket of water for four weeks and create a highly effective – though admittedly smelly – liquid fertiliser, which is totally natural.
When it comes to harvesting, it is best to pick the fruit when the berry is totally red – as, while they do ripen slightly after being picked, most vitamins are produced before. Some people even say that the sugar content in strawberries is highest on dry, sunny afternoons – which means this is when the flavour of the fruit is best. A perfect time to get out there and pick them, then!