Q: I want to plant a strawberry bed. I want to know if I should put in June bearers, or ever bearers?

A: Well, that's a good question, and a lot of it depends on what you'd like. If you'd like to have some berries on your cereal every morning throughout the summer, then the everbearer would be the best. It won't produce as much, but it'll give you a continuous supply of berries. On the other hand, if you'd like to have a nice concentrated harvest, enough that you can put some in the freezer and enjoy them the rest of the year, frozen, then the June bearers are the best. They do produce more, and that's about 99% of what's grown commercially in the state. When you go to a pick your own operation, it's almost always a June bearer.

Some of the varieties you might consider for growing as June bearers would be 'Kent', a Canadian variety that's done quite well in our area here -very productive. Another one that's been around for a number of years would be 'Honeyeye', a New York variety that's done quite well here. Another Canadian one from Nova Scotia is 'Glooscap'. And those are three that have been around enough that we sort of know how they do and have been pretty productive.

Now two others you might consider are two new ones from the University of Minnesota that we just released this year, and have done very well in our climate - the first one is 'Winona', and that one has done especially well in the southern to central part, around the Minneapolis area. It's done very well for us - a large, late berry. And then the other one is 'Mesabi', and that one is especially good for the more northern growers. That was selected for its performance up at Grand Rapids. So, those two, I think, give the Minnesota grower something they can really hang their hat on.


images: kent | honeyeye | glooscap