Nothing ushers in summer like fresh-picked strawberries. These perennial fruits are an essential for small-scale homesteads!

A handful of ripe strawberries

To make the most of this fleeting, yet oh so sweet taste of summer – we’ve got tips and tricks on growing, picking and preserving all the local strawberries you possibly can. Quick and delicious freezer jam anyone?

I promise, you will thank yourself as you make a strawberry smoothie or strawberry muffins come winter.

Strawberries are one of our little homestead’s most anticipated foods by every member of our family. So, we spend some time prepping and loving on the gardens so they produce to their fullest. Here’s how we work at growing great strawberries.

Grow Great Berries

Strawberries are as close to instant gratification as you can get with a perennial fruit. I recommend planting bare root plants, as you have more control on suitable varieties. They’re also less expensive than potted plants, and the plants seem to do better in the long run. The catch is you want to plant them in late May, before the heat of summer comes on too strong. You’ll soak the roots for an hour or two before planting. During the first growing season, plan to pinch off the first few buds that form, but let the next rounds of flowers mature to pick fruit later in the season.

Strawberry plant in flower
We’ve got our strawberry plants under a spruce tree, which keeps the soil a little more acidic.

Location

Choose a sunny spot (8+ hours) with good drainage, as strawberries do not like wet feet. They enjoy slightly acidic soil. Plant 12–24” apart. And as their name ‘STRAWberry’ suggests, they like to be mulched with STRAW. There are different varieties that will do well in Zones 3–8, making it a widely adaptable perennial fruit.

Note that once established, strawberry plants spread by runners and will need to be managed to keep from getting overgrown. Cutting and replanting or gifting the ‘daughter’ plants is a great way to spread the strawberry love!

Main Varieties of Strawberries

June Bearing: harvested in June and July here in Minnesota. The biggest producer in the shortest timeframe. Best if you want a shorter harvest period, for preserving. **I grow mostly Honeoye, a June bearing.**

Ever Bearing: produce two main crops; summer and fall. Good for eating fresh.

Day Neutral: These produce a smaller crop, but for most of the growing season.

Why Local Matters

Did you know strawberries don’t ripen after being picked?! So those strawberries that you buy from a grocery store that have travelled across the country will never taste as good as ones you pick when fully ripe. Locally grown berries tend to be sweeter, smaller, more nutritious, and denser than the varieties of berries grown to sit in grocery stores.

close up a single, perfect red strawberry held by fingers and thumb

In our growing Zone 4/5, strawberries make an appearance for about 2–4 weeks every year, from mid-June to early July. The window for picking is short, so make time for it as soon as you hear the buzz. If you can’t grow enough, be sure to get to a farm and pick your own (PYO in berry lingo). Our fabulous MN Grown has a directory of PYO farms! Even though we grow a lot of strawberries we usually go and pick some as well, bags of frozen strawberries feel like food insurance!

Both flavor and nutrition start to degrade soon after picking. The vitamin C content and the antioxidant amounts fade quickly. Strawberries are best within 24 hours of being picked, although some people have luck extending the life of their fresh berries by soaking them in one-part apple cider vinegar to one-part water for a few minutes before drying very thoroughly and refrigerating.

I know this is a post all about strawberries, but let’s give a shout out to the PYO Blueberry Farms that will be up in mid-July!

Preserve ASAP

Strawberries are a delicious source of vitamin C, one of the many antioxidants that make strawberries such a healthy food. Did you know that just one cup provides more than the recommended daily allowance? Strawberries are also an excellent source of fiber (3 grams/cup), folate, and potassium, to name a few.

many strawberries on a sheet pan

To get the most flavor and nutrition out of the fresh and local berries, make sure you eat as many as humanly possible (ha) right away and preserve the rest within 24–48 hours of harvesting them.

I tend to remove hulls and flash freeze as we harvest, because the quicker they go from living to frozen the better! Just hull and quickly rinse (or skip if they’re your own and you feel OK with that) and place in a single layer on a pan and freeze overnight. Place into a freezer bag and squeeze out air the next day.

Freezing the berries is an excellent way to protect their flavor and nutrition. Plus, savoring those summer flavors deep in winter is downright magical!

Fresh strawberries in foreground with jars of frozen berries in jars and strawberry jam in jars

I love making freezer jam, as I think it tastes way better than the cooked versions. Use MY RECIPE for that fresh strawberry favor all winter long.

Remember you can use strawberry jam to make my Strawberry Vinaigrette too!

Fresh strawberries are especially tasty on fresh local greens for a summer salad, or drizzled with aged balsamic vinegar, or served over vanilla ice cream.  

But really, there’s no wrong way to eat strawberries!

Have I convinced you to try growing your own strawberries yet?

Dig In,
Michelle