Alpine Strawberries

I first became interested in growing strawberries again when my daughter told me how she found wild strawberries on her walks in Germany. I was fascinated that strawberries grow in the wild like that so I began looking up information to learn more about them and found that they are called woodland strawberries. 

Another name for them is the Alpine strawberry and though the varieties here are very different than the type that grow wild, I found that there were seeds that you could purchase and grow at home. 

The seeds that I chose were from Botanical Interests and called Red and Yellow Wonder Blend. I really liked that these did not spread by underground runners and instead were individual plants. Another part that I liked is that the package said that I should get fruit the first year. 

I started the seeds in trays in my kitchen under grow lights in February of 2023 and planted them out in the garden in May. I was happy that the plants produced fruit all summer. The fruit was unlike any other strawberry that I’ve had before. They were very small and sweet and fun picking them as a snack while I was doing other gardening chores. 

I was expecting to get more red ones but all they produced were the yellow ones. I think that I picked maybe one red one the whole summer. I am excited to see what they do this season. Right now we are still at the end of winter with very low temps so they are currently in their dormant state.