Freezing alpine strawberries for a more substantial snack

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Shule
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Location: SW Idaho, USA

Freezing alpine strawberries for a more substantial snack

#1

Post: # 23531Unread post Shule
Thu Jun 25, 2020 11:02 pm

Alpine strawberries are awesome. They taste great and have a long harvest window. You don't have replant them every few years to keep them producing fruit, either. You can split them up instead of letting runners grow, and they grow easily from seed. But, they're small. I can eat a whole day's harvest in a few seconds. However, I've come up with a solution to that problem: Freeze them!

Frozen alpine strawberries taste great (a different kind of great than the fresh ones, as with regular strawberries, which are similarly excellent frozen). Because they're frozen, they last longer in your mouth, and you can savor the flavor. The skins and seeds come off first when you suck on them, leaving a smooth and flavorful fruit.

They don't stay frozen for a really long time like frozen grapes, but it's long enough to enjoy them well.

Another plus is that the ones that turn crispy and dry on the plant rehydrate a little if you wash them before freezing them, and they get a really nice taste and texture, too.

Anyway, it takes more than a few seconds to eat a whole bunch of frozen alpine strawberries; so, it's pretty nice. You can savor them one at a time, and not feel a huge urge to just wolf them all down at once.
Location: SW Idaho, USA
Climate: BSk
USDA hardiness zone: 6
Elevation: 2,260 feet

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ponyexpress
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Re: Freezing alpine strawberries for a more substantial snack

#2

Post: # 23574Unread post ponyexpress
Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:35 pm

I'll have to try your suggestion of rehydrating the crispy berries. So far, I'm not that impressed with alpine strawberries. I have two plants and they don't seem worth the trouble. I'm inclined to pull them up and just plant everbearing varieties.

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Shule
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Re: Freezing alpine strawberries for a more substantial snack

#3

Post: # 23639Unread post Shule
Sat Jun 27, 2020 2:09 am

If you've never overwintered alpine strawberries, I recommend letting them do it (without disturbing them in the spring) before you make your decision. They're really nice for early berries in the spring (that's when they taste the best, too); they can fruit way before garden strawberries. You can sometimes even get berries in winter, depending. The plants get bigger and nicer after overwintering (even if they were seedlings transplanted in the fall). Fall (even if it's cold) is a great time to transplant new seedlings, and to split up old plants (don't do it in the spring if you want much fruit that year, or even if you want bigger, more attractive plants that year).

In my garden, they require a lot less water on the north side of the house, under the eves where the soil stays wet the longest. They took a while to get used to it, though, but they did get used to it after a couple winters.

You don't have to split them up every year. I'd probably only do it every third year, personally. They don't mind a little crowding.

I suspect that they might do better after some generations of saving and planting seed. I've been meaning to try that, but because of some complications with starting lretty much any vegetable seeds indoors, I'll probably need to seed them in the spring with my tomatoes in our unheated greenhouse, or direct-seeded when it's still very cool (maybe I'll try direct-seeding in the fall). All mine are from the original seed packets. I'm curious if hybrids from crosses in my garden would be more prolific, too.

Mine are mostly used for snacks, but they also help flavor things nicely, like smoothies. I don't get enough to do much more than that, yet (but the plants are multiplying).
Location: SW Idaho, USA
Climate: BSk
USDA hardiness zone: 6
Elevation: 2,260 feet

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Nan6b
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Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Re: Freezing alpine strawberries for a more substantial snack

#4

Post: # 23667Unread post Nan6b
Sat Jun 27, 2020 9:40 am

If you only have two plants, you're not going to get much, just as if you only had two regular strawberry plants. You need a patch of them. Two plants will multiply by runners quickly. Mine migrated around my yard, mostly choosing partial sun. They bear all summer.

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