Kitchen Garden Simon Courtauld

A friend of mine, dying of cancer some years ago, said he was determined to hang on until the beginning of June so that he could enjoy the first English strawberries. Although I always associate them with midsummer, English strawberries, grown under cover, are available these days from early April. For the non-commercial kitchen gardener, however, June is the strawberry month.

When we moved here, we inherited a patch of Florence strawberries, which had an excellent flavour, but the plants were not new and needed replacing after a couple of seasons. For whatever reason, we replaced them not with more strawberries but with autumn raspberries.

But I think it’s time to grow strawberries again. Cold-stored runners (which will have been dug in January) can be planted in spring or autumn, and when young runners start to form in midsummer, they can be secured and rooted in pots of compost. Once rooted, these plants should be cut from their parents and will fruit the following year.

The strawberry is said to be the fastest growing of all fruit. I have seen an advertisement for the variety ‘Strawberry Sweetheart’ which, if put in the ground or a container in the last week of May, should be fruiting in time for Wimbledon. Some of the recent modern varieties have been bred to ripen early or late, so that it is possible to eat home-grown strawberries throughout June and July.

Then there are the so-called ‘perpetual’ strawberries that will last until October. One of these, ‘Mara des Bois’, which crops in spring and again in early autumn, is said to have the taste of the small fraise des bois. This delicious little beauty (variously called woodland or alpine strawberry) is less susceptible to rotting, as the fruit sit above ground. Its delicate flavour may be enhanced by a splash or two of a fruit liqueur, while the only decision to be made with conventional strawberries is whether or not to mash them before adding cream.