Strawberry Varieties for a Greenhouse
Growing strawberries in your own garden can be fun and rewarding. However, the plants are generally sensitive to cold and produce fruit only during a short and relatively warm season. If you have a greenhouse, you can protect your plants from chilly days and extend the strawberry harvest. Choosing the best varieties for greenhouse growing is the first step in ensuring a successful and long-lasting harvest.
Traditional, old-fashioned strawberry varieties flower and set fruit in the spring or early summer, generally stopping production when days become longer in late summer. However, some varieties such as "Tristar" are day-neutral, setting fruit regardless of the length of daylight. If you plant "Tristar" strawberries in pots or trays in the greenhouse in early spring, they can produce fruit throughout the summer and under controlled greenhouse temperatures, continue to set fruit well into autumn after chilly weather arrives. "Tristar" produces especially high yields of exceptionally sweet, flavorful fruit.
The variety "Selva" is another day-neutral strawberry variety that produces unusually large berries and grows well in a greenhouse. Like all strawberries grown indoors, "Selva" needs hand pollination when in flower to ensure fruit production. To pollinate plants, gently pass a camel hair brush from flower to flower across several plants. Alternatively, you could introduce a nest of natural pollinators such as bumble bees into your greenhouse. The bees will travel from flower to flower, moving pollen as they do so.
"Albion" is a day-neutral variety that was developed at the University of California. It produces strawberries with an unusually high sugar content, making them excellent choices as fresh additions to desserts. "Albion" is also especially resistant to several fungal diseases that can be a problem in a greenhouse where humidity tends to be high, including verticillum wilt, which causes leaves and flowers to drop, and several types of crown rot that can damage or destroy plants.
"Jewel" is an unusually productive strawberry variety that also has fruit with strong, sweet flavor. Although the variety is not day-neutral, it can be successfully grown in a greenhouse, according to horticultural experts at Cornell University, who recommend using succession planting to extend the harvest. Remove outdoor-grown plants in fall, when temperatures drop, and plant some in the greenhouse, storing the others in a cool location at about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Move groups of cold-stored plants into the greenhouse at staggered intervals, planning about 12 weeks from re-planting until harvest. With this strategy, you can harvest fruit from "Jewel" for many months.
- Cornell University Department of Horticulture: Berried Treasures: Off-Season Production of Strawberries and Raspberries
- North Carolina State University: Strawberries in the Home Garden
- StrawberryPlants.org: Strawberry Varieties
- Cornell University Department of Horticulture: Strawberry Yields Forever
- Burpee.com: Strawberry, Albion
Joanne Marie began writing professionally in 1981. Her work has appeared in health, medical and scientific publications such as Endocrinology and Journal of Cell Biology. She has also published in hobbyist offerings such as The Hobstarand The Bagpiper. Marie is a certified master gardener and has a Ph.D. in anatomy from Temple University School of Medicine.