Strawberries and Raspberries

[windwalkingwolf]

I'm in the process of sourcing/pricing berry plants. Strawberry tyme so far has been the best for finding cool varieties, and they have a handy table telling you how winter-hardy any given variety is, approximately how big the berries get, what yield you can expect, whether a variety is sweet or tart, etc. etc...they are also quite pricey on strawberry plants, but bare root raspberry plant prices are excellent. They don't give shipping costs or estimates, you have to phone to find out, which is a bit of a deal breaker for me. My motto is, if I have to call to ask a price, I don't want to know!
Lareault also has lots of variety and tables for information on each variety, but they're laid out in an annoying way. Also, minimum order from Lareault is 100 of a given variety of strawberry, and no pricing ANYWHERE in evidence. Grrr.
Vesey's has crap for berry varieties, e.g. only 5 strawberry including a white one, BUUUT the ones they have cover the growing season nicely and are nice starter plants. Price-wise, it's the best I've found so far for strawberry plants, even with their 'perishable item postage' surcharge nonsense. The "All-season collection" is 75 plants of 3 different tried-and-true varieties, $65, very very reasonable. However, their raspberry price is fairly high and blackberries astronomical. They don't seem to have black raspberries at all, but those grow wild everywhere on my swamp, I'll just dig some up and cultivate here.
Just a note about strawberry growing, if you let the runners grow out willy nilly, fruit will be smaller, plants will get crowded, and they'll eventually revert to wild strawberry. If you don't let runners root at all, you have to replace all your plants every two-three years or so. I like to stick a pot of soil under a runner, anchor it in, and separate once it's rooted. But you have to shelter/mulch well over their first winter or they won't make it to spring.

[Killerbunny]

I have some strawberry seeds to try this year. Alexandra a small one. See what happens.

[windwalkingwolf]

OOH, let me know how that goes, KB! I have horrible luck with seeds that have to be stratified, so I haven't tried strawberry from seed :/

[windwalkingwolf]

Still digging for suppliers, and I found this little gem: http://gwallennursery.com/wp-content/up ... t-2016.pdf , pretty sure they source from Lareault. No shipping costs listed, but prices per plant are excellent. And, I just found the strawberry root section in Dam's seeds. Not sure how I missed it before. Prices are good, better than Vesey's , and since I'll be placing an order with Dam's anyway and prefer to buy Canadian, it's looking more and more like Dam's is my winner.

[JimW]

Thanks for the info www.

I have decided to just plant strawberries this year, since I have a bunch of other things I want to do, so will plant starberries this year and raspberries next year. Thought I still have time to change my mind. lol

I am going to order from Veseys mainly because they have the White Pineberry strawberries, which I want to try. So I am going to order 30 White Pineberries and their All Season collection - 75 plants - 25 each of Veestar, Cabot, Albion.

I still have to map out my new garden, fruit trees and poultry pens locations asap so I am ready for spring. With this lack of snow it is really giving me the gardening itch.