The Herbarium
Part IV · Fruit & vegetable
Herb. No. 210
Strawberry
Fragaria × ananassa
Rosaceae
The garden berry that is not a true berry — a swollen receptacle wearing seeds on the outside, and a June that does not keep.
Ripe fruit is food. The garden hybrid is not wild woodland strawberry, which is a smaller, older perfume.
- Parts used
- Ripe fruit
- Traditional notes
- Kitchen fruit · Jam · A short fresh season
- Grow · USDA 6b
- Perennial, USDA 4–8. June-bearing or everbearing. Dormant crowns or runners. Replace the bed every three or four years. In work: May · Jun · Jul
- Harvest
- Fully red. They do not ripen off the plant in any honest way.
- Net the birds or feed the birds.
- Renovate June-bearers after harvest — mow and thin.
Safety
Known strawberry allergy
Companions
Plant with Borage, Garlic, Heartsease, Onion, Spinach, Thyme.
Keep apart from Broccoli, Cabbage.
Lore
The garden strawberry is younger than the United States. Breton and Breton-adjacent French gardens crossed the two American species in the 1700s. Medieval Europe had the woodland kind, a pinprick of perfume. The word strawberry may be the straw mulch or the stray runners. Either way, it was never a berry to a botanist.
The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.