My faithful old strawberry patch had reached the end of its useful, so
last year I dug it up and established a new bed in a different part of
the garden. To avoid a sudden glut of fruit I went for one of the
perpetual varieties which crop throughout the season, eventually
choosing Maria Des Bois from Ken Muir Nurseries.

They are just coming into fruit and both the taste and texture are, to
put it mildly, extremely disappointing. The fruits are soft and pappy.
And far from the 'aromatic flavour of the woodland strawberry' as
promised by the catalogue the taste is bland and watery. Not what I was
hoping for at all.

My partner suggests this could all be down to the recent very wet
weather but I'm not convinced; I'm more inclined to ditch the lot and
start again.
So, does anyone have any experience of this particular variety or can
put in a good word for it? And if I do decide to dig the whole lot up,
what other varieties do people recommend.

--

In article , Zlata Roi
writes

strawberry
perpetual varieties

They are just coming into fruit and both the taste and texture are, to
put it mildly, extremely disappointing.

I'm more inclined to ditch the lot and
start again.

I would be inclined to agree.


And if I do decide to dig the whole lot up,
what other varieties do people recommend.


Yes but I cannot remember the name.

Two years ago I came across 4 rather unhappy plants in a garden centre
of a variety claiming to be a novel cross between a perpetual and a
normal variety. The novelty value was said to be the red/pink flowers
and in a moment of madness I bought them. I had the devils own job
getting them established and lost three of the original plants but now I
am eating from maidens from last years runners. They come up very
slightly smaller than proper strawbs with a fine flavour, nothing wrong
with them at all.

As they are unique in flower colour they should be fairly easy to find
but if keeping them alive is going to continue to be an issue it is back
to Cambridge Favourite for me next year.


--
steve auvache
Sunny Essex

Zlata Roi wrote:

My faithful old strawberry patch had reached the end of its useful, so
last year I dug it up and established a new bed in a different part of
the garden. To avoid a sudden glut of fruit I went for one of the
perpetual varieties which crop throughout the season, eventually
choosing Maria Des Bois from Ken Muir Nurseries.

They are just coming into fruit and both the taste and texture are, to
put it mildly, extremely disappointing. The fruits are soft and pappy.
And far from the 'aromatic flavour of the woodland strawberry' as
promised by the catalogue the taste is bland and watery. Not what I was
hoping for at all.

My partner suggests this could all be down to the recent very wet
weather but I'm not convinced; I'm more inclined to ditch the lot and
start again.
So, does anyone have any experience of this particular variety or can
put in a good word for it? And if I do decide to dig the whole lot up,
what other varieties do people recommend.

I grow mine in window boxes and they do well. If you can still get hold
of it, an old trusted variety I've used for years is Cambridge Vigour,
where the flavour and texture are good. They start fruiting in late May
and have now finished and producing plenty of healthy runners.