ByMary Jane Duford
OnMarch 25, 2020

10 best tasting strawberry varieties

Best tasting strawberry varieties to plant

Fresh strawberries are the culinary highlight of June. Here are some of the best-tasting strawberry varieties to grow in your garden (or search out at local fruit stands or the farmer’s market).

Contents show

Top 10 of the best-tasting strawberry varieties

Here are ten favorites selected out of the top-tasting strawberry cultivars:

Flavorfest strawberries
Earliglow strawberries
Puget Crimson strawberries
Sparkle strawberries
Old North Sea strawberries
Jewel strawberries
Pantagruella strawberries
Marshall strawberries
Fairfax strawberries
Raritan strawberries

While the above strawberry varieties are perhaps most popularly searched out for their excellent flavor, there are quite a few delicious types of strawberries! Read on to see the full list of yummy berries to grow or buy.

“Genetics is very important, usually the most important determinant of flavor.”
The Ever Curious Gardener: Using a Little Natural Science for a Much Better Garden, by Lee Reich

Albion strawberries in concrete planter — Albion strawberries

List of the best-tasting strawberry varieties

Here are over 100 of the best-tasting strawberries. Choose a few that are well-suited to your climate (ask at local garden centers) – then pick your own favorites to grow year after year!

Looking for even more strawberry varieties? Here is a giant list of strawberry varieties, plus which are the most popular types.

“The strawberries sold in grocery stores are bred to travel and for shelf life. Transported hundreds or even thousands of miles from where they were grown, these are hard and insipid imitations of the real thing – great for handling and storage, but sorely lacking in taste.”
GrowVeg: The Beginner’s Guide to Easy Vegetable Gardening, by Benedict Vanheems

Strawberries in woodland stump

Phew! Refer to this list at the local garden center, as all varieties are not well-suited to all climates. Look locally for a few dependable, yummy varieties to start with. If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to add a new type of strawberry to your garden each year!

Here is a great guide to the unique characteristics of some of these yummy types of strawberries: Cornell Strawberry Variety Review, by Courtney Weber

“Earliglow is still considered the best tasting berry around.”
Strawberry Variety Review, by Courtney Weber, Associate Professor, Department of Horticulture, Cornell University.

Now let’s move on to some extra tips for bringing out the best flavor in your chosen strawberry variety.

Fort laramie everbearing strawberries - plant tag from bylands

Growing strawberries with kids - learning about food

Growing the best-tasting strawberries

There is more to the best-tasting strawberries than simply choosing a variety labeled “excellent flavor”. Strawberries are kind of like wine grapes in that while the variety is important, so is the terroir of their growing environment. The flavor profile and overall character are determined both by the variety (cultivar) and by the terroir of the growing location.

Here are some tips for creating a happy strawberry growing environment that promotes the growth of flavor-rich berries:

Choose healthy plants from reputable sources
Plant it in sandy soil enriched with homemade compost or other nutrient-rich organic matter
Ensure the plants are getting a solid 8 hours of direct sunlight per day
Keep the soil consistently moist, but not soaking wet (like a wrung-out sponge). Keeping the plants just a little bit on the dry side as the fruit can help concentrate flavor in smaller, more flavourful berries.
Try red plastic mulch.
Feed plants with broad-spectrum, controlled-release organic fertilizer
- Winchester Gardens Select Organics Berry Granular Fertilizer
- Miracle-Gro Performance Organics Plant Nutrition Granules
- Espoma Organics Berry-Tone Fruit & Berry Food
Avoid growth spurts (don’t over-water or over-fertilize…more is not better for producing tasty berries…we want to concentrate the flavor!)
Pick berries at different maturities to determine peak ripeness
Don’t replace the plants each year (let the plants become established over several years and note the changes in berry flavor)

Looking for more information? Here’s an entire guide on growing strawberries!

“Size and chemical composition of berries developed in sunlight over a specially formulated red plastic were compared with those that developed over standard black plastic mulch. Berries that ripened over red were about 20% larger, had higher sugar to organic acid ratios and emitted higher concentrations of favorable aroma compounds.”
Light Reflected From Red Mulch to Ripening Strawberries Affects Aroma, Sugar and Organic Acid Concentrations (Kasperbauer, Loughrin, & Wang)

Migonette alpine strawberry

Seascape berry with plants in garden

Mary Jane Duford

Mary Jane Duford is a quintessential Canadian gardener. An engineer by trade, she tends to an ever-expanding collection of plants. In her world, laughter blooms as freely as her flowers, and every plant is raised with a dash of Canadian grit.

Mary Jane is a certified Master Gardener and also holds a Permaculture Design Certificate. She's also a proud mom of three, teaching her little sprouts the crucial difference between a garden friend and foe.

When she's not playing in the dirt, Mary Jane revels in her love for Taylor Swift, Gilmore Girls, ice hockey, and the surprisingly soothing sounds of bluegrass covers of classic hip-hop songs. She invites you to join her garden party, a place where you can share in the joy of growing and where every day is a new opportunity to find the perfect spot for yet another plant.

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