If you like strawberries and have tried growing them, then you’ll recognize this scenario. You find a strawberry plant loaded with fruit in the garden center. While your mouth waters and visions of strawberry shortcake dance in your head, you buy the plant and take it home. Snacking on the berries before you plant only makes you want more.
After a few weeks of anticipation, although you’ve located the strawberry plant in a sunny, well-draining spot, fertilized it and even given the plant a good talking to, it’s still not producing any more of the sweet, juicy fruit you sampled and know the plant is capable of producing.
A check for insects and pests shows nothing out of the ordinary, which makes you come to the conclusion that you just aren’t good at growing strawberries, right?
Good June-bearing strawberries for cold climates
The reason your strawberry plant refused to give you more fruit, despite your gardening skills, is most likely that the plant is the wrong strawberry variety for the Northeast climate. All strawberries are not created equal when it comes to cold climates, but unfortunately a wide variety of strawberry types make their way into nurseries and sell to unsuspecting gardeners. The plants are budded up in the greenhouse, because plants with fruit sell, but they’re genetically unfit to produce berries in cold climates.Good strawberry choices are cold-hardy products of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station that is affiliated with Cornell University, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) breeding program based in Beltsville, Maryland and Canadian breeding programs, especially Nova Scotia. A small handful of strawberries known as day-neutrals that came out of the University of California, Davis Department of Plant Sciences can also be grown with success in cold climates.
Thanks to expert breeding by world-renowned strawberry experts, you can enjoy growing strawberries that are perfectly suited to cold climates. Selections include June-bearing varieties that bear a large crop once a year in the spring or early summer, such as Alllstar, Earliglow, Cabot, Surecrop, L’Amour (named after the author), Northeaster, Sable, Wendy, Clancy (also named after the author) and Valley Sunset.
Day-Neutral StrawberriesDay-neutral strawberries, which are often mistakenly listed as everbearing in plant catalogs, are newer varieties initially developed by University of California strawberry experts Victor Voth and Royce Bringhurst, who used as a parent a wild plant found in the Wasatch Mountains in Utah (Fragaria virginiana subsp. Glauca).
Though they had their start on the West Coast, some day-neutrals, such as Seascape and Albion, are well-suited to growing in cold climates, as are the USDA introductions Tribute and Tristar.
Day-neutral plants allow you to extend your growing season as late as early November. They are able to thrive in cold weather and bear fruit long after June-bearers hunker down for the winter, because they aren’t affected by day-length and are less sensitive to extremes in temperature. These varieties form flower buds between 35 and 89 degrees Fahrenheit.
Day-neutrals generally set fruit before June-bearers, pause for a time in mid-summer and then begin fruiting again in mid- to late-summer, producing until frost shuts them down.
Extend your day-neutral harvest into early November by protecting the plants with row cover or frost blankets during initial mild frosts, or if they’re planted in containers, by pulling them to a protected spot during cold nights. This little bit of extra effort means you can still enjoy fresh strawberry shortcake when the possibility is just a memory for other gardeners.
Learn more about growing strawberries
Want to know more about growing delicious strawberries in the cold climate garden? In my book, The Strawberry Story: How to grow great berries in the Northeast, discover how to get a prolific berry harvest every year. Learn more about the best varieties for the Northeast, how to extend your strawberry season into fall and how to renovate your strawberry beds for maximum production. Find out about planting, fertilizing and harvesting, eco-friendly, non-toxic treatments for pests and diseases, and recipes give you a delicious way to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Find the book on Amazon.com.
Win a copy of Julie’s book!
Julie is giving away one free copy of her book, which is offered as a Kindle edition only. (A free Kindle app can be downloaded from Amazon; you don’t need to own a Kindle device to read this book.) One commenter will be chosen from among all comments and will be notified by email. Giveaway will end on May 18 at midnight Pacific time.