Strawberries: Home Grown vs Store Bought
One of the first beds we put in when we started our current garden 4 years ago was a dedicated strawberry bed. I started with a flat of strawberry plants from the garden store and the following year we put in another bed with bare root strawberries. I haven’t needed to purchase any more plants since because strawberries propagate like rabbits. They send off runners (stolons) which will take root a few inches from the original plant. The plant that forms is called a daughter plant. So the beds are now overflowing with strawberry plants. I am able to take any daughter plants that root out of the bed and transplant them to other places in my yard. Strawberries make great ground cover so I have taken the daughter plants and planted them at the base of bushes and in other containers just to fill in bare spots.
Strawberries growing in one of our strawberry beds.
Organic store bought strawberry on the left and home grown strawberries on right
Other than being an easy to grow perennial plant, growing strawberries at home will give you a wonderful supply of free food. I would say we harvested $50 worth of strawberries this spring alone (and easily that much the previous spring as well) which has more than paid for the cost of the plants themselves. I spent about $25 on bare root strawberries which more than took care of a 4 X4 tiered bed. The taste and texture of homegrown strawberries differs greatly from what you can buy at the store. My homegrown strawberries are smaller, juicier and more delicate than their store bought sisters. You can see the difference in size since they are not sprayed with any fertilizers to make them grow bigger. They are harvested when ripened on the vine as well so they are not as tough in texture as store bought. They would not make good candidates for packing in plastic containers and shipping all over the country. So there is a reason the store bought ones have a different texture and size. They need to be more robust for their long shipping journeys and attractive to shoppers. But what is the cost of being more robust? They lose a little flavor. They have have a tougher texture as well as they often have a gap in the center due to their rapid growth process.
Cross section of the home grown and organic store bought strawberries. Notice the cores are much larger on the store bought but the actual outer fruit appears to be the same width.
I am not saying you shouldn’t eat store bought strawberries. I eat them and they can be delicious. I am pointing out the differences so we can appreciate local strawberries. You may think your strawberries are less than or defective when you grow them yourself because what you are used to buying at the store are completely different. They are different for a reason. They have different goals. I would say that, if you can buy locally sourced strawberries from a farmer’s market or pick them yourself from a u-pick farm, you should. They are better, smaller, sweeter, and juicier. Also it is important that we familiarize ourselves with how food should look and taste. When you grow your own food, you get a greater appreciation for the work that goes into what we eat. Both on the side of the plant and the gardener.
It also helps set realistic expectations for when you should be enjoying certain foods, ie eating seasonally, which will give you the best tasting and most nutritionally dense foods. Often times new gardeners feel like something is wrong with their food from their garden because it doesn’t look like grocery store produce. There is a reason for that. Our massed produced and farmed produce is usually sprayed with fertilizers and pesticides. Typically we are only getting one variety of something, ie carrots come in a variety of colors but somehow the carrot industry decided orange was the only one we wanted to buy. This is not to say you shouldn’t eat your grocery store produce. Eat lots of produce from whatever source you can. But if the carrots you grew look different or the strawberries from your garden are smaller, it’s totally ok. That is normal.
At peak season, we can harvest 2-3 pints of strawberries a day from our garden.
I could write an entire post just about the benefits of growing perennial foods. I love the idea of plant once, harvest endlessly. We have strawberries, raspberries, asparagus, apples grapes and peaches planted in our back yard (Zone 5b). Most of the perennial plants are the first things we get to enjoy in the spring. It’s a great motivator to plant annual foods when you are already outside bringing in a basket of goodies from the garden. It makes me want to plant more so I can keep the good times going and have a continuous supply of fresh produce to eat. I could also see a place for focusing on only planting perennial foods. Especially if you have limited time and want to make an investment with years of pay off. Keep in mind, there are many ways to grow your own food. It doesn’t always have to look like a perfect raised bed garden filled with tomato plants and summer squash. Plant what works for you and more importantly what you enjoy eating.
After harvest, I dunk all the berries in a large bowl of water to clean them then let them air dry for a bit on a towel before storing in the fridge.
