Sun-warmed, sweet and juicy, you'll be spoiled for choice if you're looking for tempting strawberry varieties this year. Picked straight from the plant, local strawberries are generally one of the highlights of the summer harvest.
Even better, it's easygrowing strawberriesand they are extremely accommodating for those with limited space. These reliable and high-yielding plants are equally at home outdoors, growing in bags or containers, offering a range of options depending on location, soil conditions, and sunny spots. Plus, with a careful selection of early, mid, late and perennial strawberry varieties, it's possible to enjoy them six months out of the year. This is especially true when a greenhouse, polytunnel or warm conservatory is available to extend the season.
Perhaps the greatest benefit of growing your own is the peace of mind that you have access to a huge profile of strains and flavors that offer far more than the often underripe and less palatable versions you find in supermarkets.
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Sue Bradley
Sue Bradley writes for various magazines about gardening, food and wildlife and the fascinating people who are passionate about these subjects. She is a member of the Garden Media Guild and the Guild of Food Writers and regularly reports on growing fruit and vegetables, including strawberries.
Tasty strawberry varieties for a long summer fruit season
Early spring can be a great time to pick and chooseplant strawberriesso they can take root for the summer.
The strawberry varieties listed here offer early, mid, and late season optionskitchen gardens, as well as alpine (forest) and perennial (everbearing) species. Find out which strain works best for you—or better yet, grow a few!
1. Vibrant Strawberry
(Image credit: Thompson-morgan.com)
- Taste:Sweet
- Size:Medium-sized
- Color:Shiny red
- Resilience:USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool season annuals
- Best for:High yields
'Vibrant' is a high yielding early summer strawberry, producing sweet, cone-shaped fruits with an excellent taste. Once established, each plant typically produces over 2.2 pounds of strawberries.
A key benefit of growing this plant is its upright habit, which makes it easyto pick strawberriesat harvest time. This is one of the early summer strawberry varieties that has good resistanceTrue mildewand crown rot.
2. Strawberry 'Honeyoye'
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- Taste:Alright, a little more sour
- Size:Large
- Color:Hellrot
- Resilience:USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool season annuals
- Best for:Sharper palates
This early strawberry variety produces large, bright red fruits with a pleasantly pungent flavor compared to its super-sweet cousins. It is a popular crop and produces large, round fruits.
Strawberry 'Honeoye' has excellent disease resistance and good yields. After youclean strawberries, the fruit keeps well after being stored in the freezer, which is good news if you're glutted.
- Buying 'Honeoye' Strawberry Plants: Looking at Burpee(opens in new tab)
3. Cambridge Favorite Strawberry
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- Taste:Gut
- Size:Middle
- Color:tie rot
- Resilience:USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool season annuals
- Best for:Disease resistance, jam making
If you're looking for a mid-season cropper with a reputation for bumper crops, choose Cambridge Favorite. This traditional strain is known to harvest reliably in a variety of conditions, making it suitable for allvegetable gardentypes and sizes.
The fruit can stay on the long stalks for a long time without becoming overripe or rotting. This is one of those strawberry varieties that produces a lot of stolons. If you have a surplus and need tostore strawberries, this variety is also popular with jam makers and freezes well.
4. Strawberry "Sweetheart"
(Image credit: Thompson-morgan.com)
- Taste:Sweet
- Size:Middle
- Color:Rot
- Resilience:USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool season annuals
- Best for:Disease resistance, heavy harvests
For anyone looking for a big harvest of deliciously sweet strawberries, Midsummer Sweetheart is sure to be your idea of summer heaven. Its cone-shaped fruits are sweet and juicy, and its high-yielding plants do well in containers and hanging baskets.
The 'Sweetheart' strawberry is a modern strawberry variety that bears fruit on strong but compact plants. This makes it ideal for small spaces, allowing it to be grown as onebalcony plantor in a pot on the patio. Good disease resistance is another positive trait.
5. Strawberry "Buddy"
(Image credit: Thompson-morgan.com)
- Taste:Strong Strawberry
- Size:Large
- Color:Dunkelrot
- Resilience:USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool season annuals
- Best for:container
Some strawberry varieties are as attractive for their decorative appeal as they are for their edible delights - and "Buddy" is definitely one such harvest. These everlasting (everbearing) strawberry varieties produce a cloud of pretty pink flowers in spring.
After flowering, this everbearing strawberry plant gives a long season of delicious dark red fruits. It is ideal forContainer Gardeningand hanging baskets due to the low-key nature of its runners.
- Buy the similar "Albion" strawberry plant: View of Burpee(opens in new tab)
6. Strawberry 'Florence'
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- Taste:Sweet
- Size:Large
- Color:Dunkelrot
- Resilience:USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool season annuals
- Best for:All soils, container cultivation
If you are looking for a late summer harvest to complement your range of strawberry plants, this UK grown strawberry will do well in all types of soil. It offers great disease resistance and early indications are that weevils are not a problem.
‘Florence’ strawberries are good asHanging plant for traffic lightsas well as excellent options for container growing. This variety produces large crops of large and firm dark red fruits from late June to late July.
7. Strawberry ‘Mara des Bois’
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- Taste:Similar to aromatic forest and alpine berries
- Size:Small to medium
- Color:tie rot
- Resilience:USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool season annuals
- Best for:Strawberry flavor
The 'Mara des Bois' strawberry is a prolific, everbearing strawberry loved by millions of French gardeners. Bred in France and loved by chefs, this charming fruity number is grown from late spring to early fall.
If you're looking to be inventiveliving wall ideas, this plant works well in vertical situations. This popular strawberry is vigorous and produces many large, glossy conical fruits. It offers an intense aromatic flavor that is also found in forest or alpine varieties.
- Buy 'Mara des Bois' strawberry plants: view of Burpee(opens in new tab)
8. Strawberry 'Snow White'
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- Taste:Pineapple
- Size:Middle
- Color:Weiss
- Resilience:USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool season annuals
- Best for:container
Bring a conversation piece to the dinner table with this unusual selection, one of only a few strawberry varieties with white flesh and red seeds. 'Snow White' is also deliciously aromatic and has an amazing flavor reminiscent of pineapple.
Also known as 'Pineberry', 'Snow White' bears fruit in early to mid summer. It has a bushy habit and stems that spread neatly, making it a good choice forIdeas for small vegetable gardensand outdoor cultivation as well as containers and hanging baskets.
- Buy the similar 'White Soul' strawberry plant: view at Etsy(opens in new tab)
9. Strawberry "Colossus"
(Image credit: Thompson-morgan.com)
- Taste:sweet, spicy
- Size:Extra big
- Color:Rot
- Resilience:USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool season annuals
- Best for:Make an impact
If size matters, Sweet Colossus is the strawberry for you - and the good news is that you can have massive fruits that are just as bountiful as traditional harvests. Where other strawberry varieties have concentrated flavor in smaller fruits, these mammoth beauties are just as delicious, and their heavy breeding hasn't come at the expense of sweetness.
Average fruit from this larger-than-life strain weighs 42g, guaranteeing a bountiful harvest. Ideal forRaised beds for the garden, greenhouse borders and garden beds, this gigantic strawberry bears fruit from early summer to early fall.
- Buy the similar 'Giant Extra Jumbo' strawberry plant: view at Etsy(opens in new tab)
10. Alpine/Forest Strawberry
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- Taste:Not as intense as cultured types
- Size:Klein
- Color:Rot
- Resilience:USDA 5-8 perennials, 9-10 cool season annuals
- Best for:pollinator, decoration
For something a little differentFragaria vesca(also known as wild or alpine strawberry) is an attractive addition to the garden. The wild strawberry forms attractive leaves and flowers, followed by small berries in June.
Hardy and cold-tolerant, these charming strawberry varieties have highly ornamental qualities. they are amazingplants for pollinators, and perfect for the front of a border or the edge of a path.
- Buying 'Alpine Yellow Wonder' Strawberry Plants: A View of Burpee(opens in new tab)
FAQs
What is the tastiest strawberry to grow? ›
Camarosa strawberries are one of the most common and best-tasting strawberry varieties. This variety has a wonderful sweet flavor and produces big yields. The berries are large with good form and can easily stand up to storage and shipping.
What strawberry plant produces the most fruit? ›Honeoye strawberries are day-neutral June-bearing strawberries. They are early season producers and set large, firm, bright orange-red to red fruit. Strawberrieis from Honeoye plants tend to be of consistent size throughout the season. It is also one of the heaviest producers, which is why it ranks atop this list.
Which variety of strawberries is the sweetest? ›Alpine. Small Alpine strawberries come in a surprising variety of colors. The fruit is tiny but incredibly sweet, in fact, the sweetest variety you can grow.
What strawberries produce all year? ›Popular varieties of the everbearing strawberry include Ozark Beauty, Everest, Seascape, Albion, and Quinalt.
What are the most expensive strawberries? ›The strawberry world is abuzz with rumors and stories of a strawberry worth almost $500. The Japanese strawberry farmer, Mikio Okuda, has been growing strawberries for 45 years and took the world by storm with the stable development of his Bijin-Hime (“Beautiful Princess”) Strawberry.