Re: questions

Depends on what you want the alpine strawberries for. I agree with Jim, it would be hard to grow enough of these to harvest to sell. They're tiny! They are softer than commercial berries and would not ship well. They are wonderful to eat out of hand in the garden. I think they make lovely border plants. Mine seed around & I've found the most effective way to 'plant' them is to mash a berry around in my mouth, then spit the seeds where I want some new plants. 
The flavor is more intense than most "big" strawberries.
What can be more natural than open pollination? Ma Nature does it all the time. I have some ground cover strawberries that self seeded & now produce berries in my flowerbed that the grandkids look for first thing. I think they're sweet, but otherwise blah. The kids love them. 
It's easy to dig out any plants that produce berries you don't like.
Maybe relocate the alpines to your flower borders if they're the ones you don't want. Or put the quinaults elsewhere if you want to keep the alpines in the garden. As far as crosspollinating, just pick all the berries produced while they're in close proximity. It won't affect any berries produced after they're secluded. 
Judy B z 6 Idaho,
lovely weather here 80s daytime & 68 at night
----- Original Message ----- From: "kathy" <akkath@horizonsatellite.com> 
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Friday, June 26, 2009 11:18 PM
Subject: [CHAT] questions
hi i've got some alpine strawberries growing in my garden (don't know name yet but trying to find out) and was recently given some quinault strawberries. i put the flats in the garden not realizing they could cross pollinate. they have been about 30 feet apart and the weather has been mostly rainy. i live 
in south central alaska.  i think our zone here is about a 3.

so my questions are, have they genetically modified any variety of alpine
strawberry? i want to know because i'm trying to grow an heirloom garden and 
don't want gmo's.  and do you think these two types of strawberries have
already cross pollinated? if so, are both ruined? how can i know? and what 
should i do now?
how far away should two varieties of strawberries be planted to keep them from cross pollinating? and why do you folks prefer the alpines over others? and 
are all alpines also wild?
thanks for any help you can provide. i'm not going to plant anything until i 
get more info and can make an informed decision.

sincerely,
kathy hatch
akkath@horizonsatellite.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE GARDENCHAT


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE GARDENCHAT
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index