u/FuzzyShoot

Last year I bought some potted pineberry plants, it was quite late in the season and sadly I did not get the chance to get some fruit.

They survived the extremely cold winter without any cover besides the mulch I applied(used wood shavings from out button quail bedding).

Now they are finally fruiting! Tried a few but there are a lot of unripe ones so looking forward to the next few days/weeks.

They are covered with nets like all the other strawberry beds in my garden because of the advanced bird warfare going on.

As a bonus: they are sending runners like crazy so I am forcing them to root in pots and containers. Then I will share them with friends, I am sure it will make them very happy.

If you get the chance to taste them or grow them yourself they are worth it, very interesting flavor.

Some people spend a lot of money and buy potted or bare roots strawberries. I am also guilty of that.

But if you are on a budget and have a bit of patience then you can get relatively cheap strawberry plants for your garden.

Get a ripe strawberry(or multiple), even store bought ones will work. But they usually will not be true to type.

Using a sharp knife you "skin" it just deep enough to get the seeds along with the skin. Put the pieces flesh down on some baking paper. After a few days it dries and becomes thin, then you can collect the seeds by gently scraping the skin with your finger. They will just fall off.

Get a pot, fill it with soil, sprinkle the seeds on top(do not sow them deep, new sprouts are very fragile and will not have enough strength to emerge), gently mist them and cover the pot with cling paper, poke some holes for some air flow and wait until you see tiny sprouts emerging.

Do not place them in direct sunlight because they will get sunburnt. Gently mist them once in a while to keep them moist.

When the plants are a few cm tall you can transplant them.

And now you have your own strawberry patch 🙂

In the photo you can see some small strawberry plants I grew myself from seed. I do this every year and get a ton of new strawberries to expand my patch.

I am also guilty of chaos gardening and just mix a bunch of seeds together so I have no idea what variety they are. But this also keeps it fun and you can get a lot of surprises as a result.

Summer breeze snow variety. Had it also a couple of years ago but I didn't have a garden so I kept it in a pot.

Very sturdy plant, big flowers with double petals and relatively large berries. I have two plants right now and looking forward to the them sending runners so I can expand the patch.

Collecting seeds will not work sadly as I have a lot of other varieties in the garden.