The White Strawberry Guide 

• The Lure of the White Strawberry
• About Alpine Strawberries
• Getting Started with Alpine Strawberries
• Planting My White Strawberries
• Growing and Gardening Alpine Strawberries
• From Flower to Fruit
• The Lifecycle of a White Strawberry
• Garden Photo Gallery
• White Strawberries & Allergies
• Alpine Strawberry Seeds & Plants
• The Joy of White Strawberries
• Berry Growers Unite!

The Lure of the White Strawberry 

the story of why I chose to grow this type of strawberry

Many years ago, I had a roommate who grew white strawberries. She had about half a dozen plants in little pots. They made teeny, tiny berries but they were awfully cute and very tasty.

This spring (spring 2008) I signed up for an edible garden tour that a woman from our local sustainable garden group was hosting. We saw a private, household garden that is owned and maintained by a woman who does landscaping for a living. Her garden is set up to be easy to maintain so that she doesn't have to do a ton of gardening for herself after a long day of doing it at work. And since she's limited on space and loves good things to eat, a lot of what she gardens is edible. She had many interesting berries, a great composting system and even keeps a few chickens.

But one thing that really stuck with me was her white alpine strawberries. She talked about how alpine strawberries AREN'T invasive, as they don't produce by making runners like more conventional strawberries. She said the pale color tended to "fake out" the birds and critters who don't think the berries are ripe, so she loses less fruit to the animals in her yard. And they are "ever-bearing" which means they make fruits all summer and into the fall instead of just one large crop in late spring or early summer.

I was SOLD! I decided I had to give growing my own white alpine strawberries a try in my own garden.

(shown here, my new plants after they've been in the ground for a few weeks)

About Alpine Strawberries 

more info on what makes alpine strawberries different

Root Cause » White Alpine Strawberry

Here's a plant I remember from my childhood. We had a few of these growing in my backyard, but for some reason they grow much better in a pot on my roof now. They are really tasty! These are smaller than modern strawberries, but the flavor is very intense.

White Alpine Strawberry

The fragrance reminds us of strawberries, and our noses are right on track because our garden path is lined with the Alpine strawberry.

New York Times Article - Alpine Strawberries

CUTTINGS; Summer's Plump Little Success Story, Published: June 22, 2006
I HAVE been grazing on the Alpine strawberries in my walled perennial garden every day for almost two months now. Some mornings, I take out a bowl of granola and milk, pluck a dozen ripe berries, and sit down to breakfast right there.

Tiny strawberries smell sweet, taste like pineapple

I started my golden Alpine strawberries from seed. For the first few weeks, success wasn't at all certain. The seeds weren't much bigger than specks of dust, and the directions said germination could take four weeks. After 2 1/2 weeks only one seedling had appeared. Oh well, I thought, one is enough to see what they are like. But my daily trips to the windowsill revealed ever more of the tiny plants, and by the end of the month I had 19 unmistakable baby strawberries, each with a couple of trefoil leaves. From these beginnings began years of enjoyment of this wonderful fruit.

Getting Started with Alpine Strawberries 

finding seeds and plants to begin growing

These are best started in the late winter or spring if you are going to grow outside, but if you have a greenhouse, you could probably start them any time of year.

Alpine Strawberry 20 Seed/Seeds Fraises

Amazon Price: $2.99 (as of 12/04/2008)

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Yellow Wonder Alpine Strawberry 10 Seeds

Amazon Price: $4.99 (as of 12/04/2008)

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Strawberries Alpine Mignonette Seeds

Amazon Price: $2.79 (as of 12/04/2008)

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Alpine Strawberry Blooms in a Bag

Amazon Price: (as of 12/04/2008)

ORGANIC FRIENDSHIP MINI GARDENS ALPINE STRAWBERRY

Amazon Price: $4.50 (as of 12/04/2008)

Usually ships in 3-4 business days

Planting My White Strawberries 

the gardening process begins....

I decided to get plant starts (baby plants) to get my strawberry patch going. I called around to the nursery and garden centers near where I live and found one that would be getting organic white alpines in stock. I put in an order for half a dozen starts.

My starts arrived at the garden center in mid-May and they called me to come pick them up. The variety I have is called "Alba Dolce" and were organically-grown by a local grower. The tag that came with the plants says:

"This heirloom Italian Alp variety is one of our favorite part shade edible landscape plants. They produce beautiful white, fragrant and sweet berries their first year and ultimately grow to a size of 18" wide and 10" tall. Year round visual interest."

I put the plants into my garden in two batches of three. One trio is in the ground in the front of one of our flower beds and the other is at one end of a raised bed where vegetables are grown. Both areas get a mix of sun and shade and should allow enough room for the plants to grow to full size without getting crowded.

As with all newly-planted starts, I water them in the mornings when we don't have any spring rains. Also my readings on growing alpines suggested that I pick off all flowers from the plants through the end of June and then let them go. This is so that the plants put all their energy into growing the main plant and getting well-established before they turn to the tasks of flowering and fruiting. After two weeks in the ground, a few of them started to make flowers.

(Shown here are the strawberry plants that are in the raised bed, photo taken in late June. If you compare with the picture in the first module, you can see they've really grown in size!)

Growing and Gardening Alpine Strawberries 

how-to for Fragaria vesca

Alpine Strawberries: Information, Resources and Products

Welcome to fraises des Bois online. This is what we consider THE definitive site on alpine strawberries. Over the last year we have expanded into other strawberries that can also be grown from seed.

White Flower Farm - Planting, fertilizing, and growing Alpine Strawberries (Fraises des bois)

Plant Fraises des bois Alpine Strawberries in full sun or partial shade. Strawberries thrive in well-drained soil that is rich in organic matter. Amending your soil with aged manure or compost will supply all the nutrients the young plants need to get started. Proper drainage is essential, so mound the soil to form raised beds, if necessary.

Alpine Strawberry

Fragaria vesca is a cousin of the wild strawberry. It is found in woods and grasslands in Europe, western Asia, North America, and temperate areas in Chile. The word straw in strawberry comes from the verb to strew, referring to the tangle of vines with which the plant covers the ground. Cultivated strawberries were developed from the wild ones.

Alpine Strawberries - Growing and Propagating

Our most successful fruit so far this year has been the alpine strawberry. Safely nestled on a little slug and woodlice proof island (almost) they have been fruiting for months now.

They require very little maintenance once they have been planted and provide an abundance of little strawberries.

The Charm of the Alpine Strawberry

The Alpine strawberry is at home when grown as a walkway edging, a ground cover, or as part of your fruit or herb garden. The plant is also as well-suited to growing in a container as it is in-ground and makes an excellent hanging plant or addition to your strawberry pot!

The Lifecycle of a White Strawberry 

the berry-growing process

Garden Photo Gallery 

Here's a photo gallery of my alpine strawberries as they are growing. These pictures show three of my plants which I have growing at one end of a raised bed.

Young plants in the raised bed, early June

More matured strawberry plants, late June.

The flowers first show as tiny white buds.

The buds form tiny white flowers with yellow centers.

The petals fall off and the yellow centers start to grow.

Getting larger, the flower centers turn into tiny berries

They go from yellow to green as they form.

By early August, the plants are so big they are starting to touch each other.

If you hunt around in the leaves, you find a lot of berries.

My first batch of ripe berries

They are intensely strawberry-flavored

I should keep getting fresh berries into the fall

White Strawberries & Allergies 

Research Profile: Allergic to strawberries? Try a white one

For many people, the sight of a strawberry resting against a piece of chocolate cake is a sad one, indeed. Those who are allergic to strawberries cannot eat the fruit or anything that touches it.

The chemistry of strawberry allergy

Not everyone can enjoy the fresh strawberries in summer. Some experience an allergic reaction with itching and swelling in mouth and throat. Biochemists at Lund University have identified a strawberry allergen among the thousands of proteins in a strawberry. Screening is now performed to find strawberries with no or little of the allergen protein. Sofar, a colourless, 'white' strawberry variety has been found to be virtually free from the allergen.

Alpine Strawberry Seeds & Plants 

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The Joy of White Strawberries 

• Gardener's snack - when your plants are young, they are smaller and make less berries. So often you just get a few every few days or so. They don't keep well enough to save up, so sometimes it's just nice to eat them fresh off the plants while tending the garden.
• Salad garnish - Summer salads are great with just a light accent of fruit and a few of these lovelies are a wonderful surprise with a unexpectedly-bold taste.
• Breakfast or Dessert - If you have enough plants that are making lots of fruit, you can sometimes get a large enough harvested to serve them as the main feature of a fruit bowl.
• Jam/Canning - my eventual goal is to grow my plants large enough to split them off and expand my strawberry plot to be large enough to make a white strawberry jam. I figure this is a few years down the road at least.

Berry Growers Unite! 

If you've got questions about alpine strawberries, you can ask them and I'll do the best I can with answers. If you grow these lovely berrie yourself, share your best tricks and tips!