Strasberry: What is it, and How Does it Grow?

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Strasberies are a unique type of strawberry that tastes like a mix between a strawberry and raspberry.  They’re the product of years of selective breeding, and they’re incredibly hard to find.

Strasberries are in fact a real thing, though they sound like a misspelling of the word strawberry.  They also go by the spelling Straussberry, Strassberry, Strazzberry, and even Framberry, depending on who’s spelling it.

The name helps to explain their unique taste and appearance.  The look (and taste) like a cross between strawberries and raspberries.

With seed dimples reaching deep into the berry, they get a bumpy appearance like raspberries.  Enough selective breeding and they actually taste a bit like raspberries too.

No, you can’t actually cross-breed strawberries and raspberries, they’re two completely different plants.  What you can do is very selectively breed strawberries over a number of generations to bring out unique flavor compounds.

That’s just what German plant breeder Otto Schindler did, and his work was finished in 1925 when he released this unique raspberry-flavored strawberry.  They go by the Latin cultivar name Fragaria × ananassa ‘noMieze Schindler’.

No, they’re not some crazy franken-food.  And no, they’re not GMO.  They’re just a really unique strawberry variety that’s really hard to find.

How do I know they’re really hard to find?  Because I’ve been trying all week!

This year is going to be the year of the strawberry on our homestead, and I’m hoping to grow literally dozens of unique varieties.

Why?

First, my kids eat an incredible amount of strawberries, and the more I can grow the better.  They’re up to $10 a pound at the grocery store (thanks to inflation) and that’s for those flavorless, rock-hard supermarket berries.  I bet the nice local ones will top $10 a pint this year.

We already grow 4 different types of strawberries, both standard June bearing, and everbearing strawberries, and we harvest wild strawberries from the edge of the woods all summer long.  This year I started researching unique strawberry varieties to add to our garden, and I came across quite a few!

We’re planning to add:

• Alpine Strawberries ~ Tiny, delicate fruits and incredible flavor.  They come in red, yellow, and white varieties.
• Pineberries ~ A white-fleshed strawberry with dark red seeds that tastes like pineapple. 
• Musk Strawberries ~ A European native strawberry that grows wild from Norway to Italy.  The plants come in male and female varieties, and you need a male to pollinate the females.  They taste like a mix of strawberry, raspberry, and pineapple.

I was able to find pineberries at Stark Brothers Nursery, but they were quite expensive ($20 each).  I found a better deal on them as bare-root plants from Amazon.  Multiple varieties of Alpine strawberry and Musk Strawberry are available from Raintree Nursery.  Just about all of them are quite hardy, and most will withstand zone 4 winters (some even zone 3).

Try as I might, I was not able to find anywhere that would ship strasberry plants. 

We grow strawberries from seed, but unfortunately, strasberries are not self-fertile and must cross-pollinate with regular strawberries.  That means their seeds won’t breed true, and will have a mix of characteristics from both.  You should be skeptical or anyone trying to sell strawberry seeds online, not that there is anyone doing that at this point anyway. 

Where to Buy Strasberry Plants and Seeds

So where can you get strasberries?

I was able to find a few sources for strasberry plants in the Pacific Northwest, a couple of sources in the UK, and a few more in Australia.  I imagine you can also get them in Germany as that’s where they were developed.

In the Pacific Northwest of the US, you can buy them for local pickup only at:

• Bremerton City Nursery (Bremerton, WA)
• Molbak’s Garden and Home (Woodinville, WA)

In the UK, you can find them at:

• Jameson Brothers Nursery
• Amazon UK

If you know of another source for either strasberry plants or seeds, please do let me know in the comments. 

And second, if you happen to live near any of these sources and would be willing to buy them and ship them to me, I’d really appreciate it.  I’ll cover the cost, and send you something nice as a thank you.

Growing Strasberries

If you are able to find them, strasberries are not self-fertile.  They need to be grown near regular or everbearing strawberry varieties.  All you need is a few regular ones mixed in your patch, ideally about a foot away (30 cm).

Beyond that, you can grow them just like regular strawberries.

Unique Fruit Varieties

Looking for more unique fruit varieties?  We grow quite a few on our homestead, and we add more any chance we can get!

• How to Grow Honeyberries (Haskaps)
• How to Grow Lingonberries
• How to Grow Salmonberries
• How to Grow Shipova