Everbearing & Day-Neutral Strawberry Varieties

A June-bearing strawberry gives one heavy flush over about three weeks and then spends the rest of the year making runners. An everbearing one spreads the same effort out: the older everbearers such as Ozark Beauty and Fort Laramie give two flushes, early summer and fall, while the modern day-neutrals, Albion, Seascape, Tristar and their kin, set flowers regardless of day length and fruit continuously whenever the temperature sits between roughly 35 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. The total yield is lower than a June-bearer's; what you get instead is a bowl every week from June to frost.

These 9 are the everbearing and day-neutral varieties in the library, sorted hardiest first. Fort Laramie and Tristar are rated to zone 3; Albion and San Andreas are the firm, big-berried California types; Mara des Bois is the French one grown for perfume rather than size; Seascape and Evie-2 are the heat-tolerant picks. Read the disease column for red stele and Verticillium, the two soil diseases that end a strawberry bed. Day-neutrals are usually grown as annuals or two-year plantings, with the first flowers pinched for six weeks after planting so the roots establish before the fruit comes.