Strawberries, Raspberries, and Blueberries

Fellow SFG's!

I've read quite a bit on planting these various types of fruits in a SFG. Was wondering if anyone had some insight into what varieties of plants of each are best to grow in our region? I would like to see high yielding plants with excellent taste that bear fruit season round...and now I feel I am asking too much. Can anyone with experience in these plants please give me some feedback on the best varieties to plant and their success stories.

Thanks!

I think you're asking for what we all want in a berry plant! I can't give you any specific varieties, but I can say to look for everbearing strawberries (vs. June bearing). There are certain varieties of raspberries that will give you two harvests a year, whereas most will only give you one. I've read that heritage raspberries, if pruned correctly, will give you two harvests a year. I honestly don't know much about blueberries, except that for most varieties (though not all), you need two different types of blueberry in order for the bushes to produce berries.

I can say, though, that these plants are practically made for our region So you should have no trouble growing them.

Google your state agricultural college. Each state has one. They will have an extension service where they share that info with the public.

University of Maryland ag extension has publications on these. Fact Sheet 755 from the Maryland Cooperative Extension is for blueberries. It lists the following as recommended cultivars for Maryland: Bluetta, Duke, Earliblue, Spartan, Patriot, Blueray, Bluecrop, Jersey, Elliott, and Lateblue. I ordered some organic varieties online last fall, but keep eyeing more in stores. The Home Depot in Germantown had Duke and Elliott, among other varieties, in March. Top Hat is a small plant good for containers, and was recommended by an employee at a local nursery/garden center. As far as the strawberries, I think Mohawk, Earliglow, Cavendish, Primetime, and Latestar are recommended by UMD. Also, you can go to strawberry plants.org and they have a listing for recommended varieties by state. Good luck!

I picked up a bunch of blueberry varieties last fall real cheap,and I have to say,the tophats have by far the most blooms on them.They are covered.I don't know if that will end up giving me the most berries,we'll see what happens.



Raspberries,again,grabbed a bunch of kinds last fall.My thinking on this was,the reds will bloom now(they are)and get fruit early summer.I also grabbed golden raspberries that fruit in fall.I have heritage ones too,so we'll see if they are everbearing as they say.That should spread raspberry production out over months.

Strawberries,mixed kinds,(lowes and walmart clearance)Quinalt,Allstar,tristar,merlan,tristan,and some others I can't remember.Some everbearing,some june bearing,should spread it out for awhile.They are covered with flowers already,some have green strawberries on them.

I went a little different direction by planting various kinds to spread the harvest,don't know for sure what produces best yet,but if you have the room the variety is nice.Did the same with blackberries a few years back and have an extended harvest of different size and taste berries.

Thanks everyone for the great feedback. I did contact the state college to find out their research on the issue and they got back to me within a few days.

I ended up finding the cheapest place I could, http://simmonsplantfarm.com, to place an order for strawberries and raspberries. I ended up ordering 25 Cardinal bare root strawberry plants, 25 ozark beauty strawberries, and 5 heritage raspberry plants. They should be here on Thursday. I am so excited to start them.

From the other research I've done, seems it's never a good idea to do the raspberries in the SFG. And I actually hadn't heard of anyone on this forum planting strawberries 4 per square, Mel's way. However my friend Mr. Google found me another person in SLC, UT who has done his strawberries this way and makes it sound as if he has lots and lots of big juicy strawberries doing it this way.

Has anyone tried Mel's way to do 4 plants per square? Results? Also, has anyone tried putting raspberries in a container of any sort or in their SFG? Results?

Thanks everyone, so excited it is Spring and new growth is in the garden! Also trying a plastic garbage can as a composter. Question I had about this is the minimum recommended depth height width is 3X3 feet and my garbage can is maybe half that. There are other composting bins you can buy that appear to be much less than that as well, so I am assuming I should start to see fresh compost soon. Then again, my bin is only half full of compost...

Happy gardening to everyone!

Don't make my mistake and overfill the garbage can composter. There was no space for the stuff to tumble and mix. Worked fine when I made a second one and split the compost until finished.

Kay