Orlando Berry Basket
Fall plant, winter fruit
Growing Strawberries in the Florida Home Garden calls Florida the winter strawberry capital of the world, and it grows them as an annual rather than a perennial. Temperatures between 50°F and 80°F and day lengths of 14 hours or less are what most varieties need to flower and fruit. North of here those conditions show up briefly in late summer and again in spring. On the Florida peninsula they hold through much of fall, winter, and spring. So the calendar is upside down on purpose.
Single-crown plants go in from late September to early November. Flowering and fruit start in November. The crop runs into April or May. It does not run steadily. Fruit comes in two or three cycles and can be interrupted by freezing weather. The plants come out at the end of it. Best quality fruit comes from relatively young plants carrying no more than four or five branch crowns, so gardeners pull them after fruiting and set new ones the following fall.
UF/IFAS suggests Camarosa, Florida Brilliance, and Sweet Sensation Florida127 for the home garden. Camarosa has been the most productive in North Florida. Florida Brilliance and Florida127 produce more early in the season and have been the most productive commercially in Central Florida. Expect 1 to 2 pints per plant across the season.
Strawberry flowers and fruit are damaged below 32°F. A cover is the practical answer: sheets, blankets, or frost cloth, put on during the afternoon before an expected freeze and anchored so wind cannot lift it. Get this.
A strawberry is ready when three quarters of its surface is red. Pick every two to four days rather than waiting for a big harvest. Ripe berries bruise easily. A huller takes the calyx out without taking half the berry with it. Get this.
Blueberries are not the same bed
Different plant, different rules. Blueberry Gardener's Guide says the best planting window in Florida is mid-December to mid-February, and that only low-chill cultivars work here. Southern highbush is the type for the peninsula. Strawberries want soil pH 5.5 to 6.5. Blueberries want 4.0 to 5.5. Those numbers do not share a bed. Two beds, or a blueberry in a pot of pine bark.
A July clamshell at the grocery is often not local. Winter is when Florida strawberries show up. The season page tracks that split. The grow page has the raised-bed steps, plastic mulch, and the blueberry half.
