by greendawn 22 Replies latest jw friends
This may not be the case in the USA, Australia etc but whenever I buy strawberries they are disappointing in that they are not sweet at all and only the addition of sugar makes them reasonably good.
Only once I had strawberries that were sweet as they should be, I believe they were from Scotland, otherwise they are just colour they look good to the eye but they are not tasty (aren't they like the Watchtower Society?)
Does anyone know of specific sweet varieties that can be grown at home?
The best strawberries I've ever had have been the ones we found growing wild in the forest when we were kids. We'd pick basket-loads of them. They are fairly small berries - like the ones in the picture - but quite sweet.
I googled "Growing strawberries" Try this. I think soil condition makes the biggest difference in sweetness.
http://gardening.about.com/od/fruitsberriesnuts/a/Strawberries.htm
Store purchased strawberries have little sweetness because they are picked before they are fully ripened, sprayed with chemicals to slow down spoilage and sit in warehouses before delivery.
My son and I just went strawberry picking yesterday here in West Virginia.
Fresh strawberries are sweet from the vine. We brushed off a few out in the field and popped them into our mouths. My five year old made yummy noises while he was eating because it was so delicious.
When we got home he had 2 bowls of fresh picked sliced strawberries. No sugar needed!
And its not even strawberry season yet - you are eating strawbs that havent seen any genuine sun or natural conditions - no wonder they are tasteless. Eat in season, locally sourced, organic products OR grow your own.
As mentioned above, if you grow your own they will be very sweet. They are very easy to grow and require very little care. We also have the small wild strawberries growing on our property. They are only the size of a pencil eraser but they have ten times more aroma and flavor. We made the mistake of transplanting some of them into our flower beds. By the next year they sent out runners in all directions and took over the flower beds. So we decided to remove them and just pick the wild ones.
If you have any local farmers markets you may be able to get them picked ripe also. I would never buy them out of a grocery store.
I like them on shortbread that has been lightly soaked with scotch and topped with real wipped cream.
Thanks for the advice, I tried wild strawberries once and they do have a more delicate aroma and are sweet. The best way seems to be, to go and pick them up from farms never from groceries (though they may look shiny, beautifully red and delicious) or grow them and harvest them when they are really ripe.
That will solve the problem just as a tip from Buttlight solved the problem of having always tough roast pork meat it was a matter of adding some water or a few onions for extra moisture.
We buy Dole California grown fresh picked wild strawberries. They taste delicious and are sweet, we get them from our grocery store Super Fresh, Rednicks, Giant etc.
Blueblades
My brother once told me to add vinegar to the strawberries to make them taste sweeter. I thought he was nuts but I cut up some strawberries and put them in a container with a splash of vinegar and let them set awhile. They were very sweet. Go figure.
BFD
I got some strawberries at Zehrs yesterday....they're absolutely tasteless. Like eating solid water. My dad used to grow the most wonderful strawberries and raspberries on the farm when we were kids. Twice as big as anything you get now and no fear of pesticides. We'd just take the basket out to the garden, load up (eat half of them on the way back to the house) and have them for dessert. He also got some wild black raspberry bushes when HE was a teenager and man oh man were they good. Juicy and sweet----we never had to put sugar on them. His cantalopes grew as big as a small watermelon........
