wild strawberries

[funkymoped]

last september i was down in cornwall. along the coast in newquay there were wild strawberry plants. i took a cutting and brought it back home with me, planted it in a good compost and waited. ive now got a very healthy plant that is about to blossom.

the thing im curious about is, will the fruit have a known taste or might it produce a fruit that has little or no taste, or even a sour fruit ?

[WendyS]

Wild strawberries have quite a concentrated flavour when ripe but the problem is there's so little of them that you need a whole mouthful to really experience the flavour. (One of the big jam makng companies makes a delicious jam from wild strawberries). I'm not sure whether the wild plants produce runners like the domestic plants do or whether they propogate themselves from seed in the wild, but , in the course of time you might be able to grow a decent little crop. All these, of course, will be gratefully enjoyed by the slugs and the blackbirds who will pounce on them the moment they ripen before you're able to reap the results of your patient labours !!

[mullein3]

you can buy the seeds for wild strawberrys from suffolk herbs ..allthough the plant you have got will spread..the jam from wild strawberrys is lovely..if i was you i would buy a packet of seeds and make a patch of them..you can allways cover them with a net to stop them getting eaten..mine are growing in a shady area and i let the birds pick mine..as i like to grow things for them to eat..

[Lonnie]

Thanks for the memories, we used to pick these while on exercise with the Army, Scrumptious.

[funkymoped]

this was a runner. i nipped in before it had chance to take root so was lucky to get it home, and for it to survive !

dont really mind if i get to have a taste of cornish bred strwaberries or not this year. will share anything me, but the slugs can leave them alone.

thanks for takin time to reply.

Lonnie, memories should only get 2 stars but memories can often taste better than the real thing !

[spudqueen]

When I lived in Devon I had wild strawberries all over the garden so when moving up to the North West I brought a couple of plants with me and now have a lot of wild strawberry plants in the garden. They do have a tendancy to run a bit wild but they are very easy to pull out if you get too many. The fruits are so small that you don't really get enough of them to feed a family of four so I buy strawberries and stick a few wild ones on top or use them to decorate ice cream or something.