I have bought from Nourse before. I stuck with the "tried and true" earliglow, and it did well for me in zone 6. The plants were very good size and they all grew. They also gave me 15 extras with the order.

I had a similar experience with raspberries from them. They are highly recommended on almost every gardening site, for a reason. They are the best.

As for variety, the only other one I have is Honeoye. It does not do well for me. ( small berries).

I am no expert.

For the last 3 years, I've been demoing several varieties of strawberries. The Cabots I grew were large and beautiful. However, they were mouth puckering awful. Unedible. Because they were so beautiful, my mom didn't believe me. She picked a fabulous looking berry, tasted it, and spit it out. They were so bad, I just let those beautiful berries rot. It never occured to me that a strawberry could taste that bad. I grew them in the same conditions as my other berries. However, if they taste that bad for other people, I don't see how they could possibly continue to be sold. So maybe they grow better for other people.

My Jewel strawberries are not as large and not as beautiful, but they certainly taste a whole lot better.

Andrew,

I am no expert either but I will share my experiences with you and maybe it will be helpful.

All my strawberry were obtained by Nourse two years ago. I ordered Earliglow, Cabot and Evie 2. Quality plants, timely shipping and 100% survival. I followed all care instructions provided. This was my first bearing year. The Cabots were large, productive and tasted great. Since they are so big, they are great for fresh eating, especially for your kids. They runner well and fill in nicely although the runners seem shorter than other strawberries I've grown.

The Earliglow and Cabot seasons overlapped nicely. As one was slowing down the other was just heating up. When the Earliglows were totally fizzling, the Cabots were at their peak. Both beds were renovated a couple weeks ago and are already nearly fully leafed out again.

Here is a photo of a bowl of Earliglows. The two larger berries on the top are the first few edible Cabots of the year. For reference, this picture was taken on 6/4/11, I am in Zone 5, southwest suburbs of Chicago.

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My only complaint about the Cabots is that the first berry in each cluster was very strangely shaped and sometimes had a hollow center. Tasted the same, just ugly.

For an ever-bearer, I have had good experience with Evie 2. Here is a photo of a bed of them in the left of the picture.

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The bed is dense and the leaves are big and glossy which hides them from the birds. They runner well even though I keep them contained in that area. Production has been steady even through this past week of hot, humid days with temperatures in the high 90's.

It looks like you are using pine needles as mulch. If so, I am sincerely envious. In NJ I can't find pine needle mulch - the local nurseries can't even get a distributor which can special order it. It lasts forever, covers well and doesn't seed the way straw does for me.

If it isn't pine needles, well then I'm just blind and ignore me .

Is that a blueberry inside the high tech cage? Did you build or buy that, and what is covering it? I tried a PVC cage with bird netting and watched the chipmunks spend less than a minute biting holes in it.

Thanks for your input.

Andrew

Andrew,

Love my pine needle mulch. Does a good job of weed suppression and, like you said, lasts a long time. Great for winter mulching the strawberries and then I move it to in betwween the rows and it keeps the berries off the mud.

It is available online from www.pinestraw.com. (no kickback here) Yeah, it's a little pricey but it is delivered to your door in a couple days. It is easy to spread and each box covers a large area as advertised. I got three larges boxes. I have three berms about the size of the one in the picture and I used two full boxes and just about a quarter of the third box. Good product, good company to deal with.

As far as my bird protection sphere, I made it myself, I have several of them in different sizes. I took this photo originally to respond to another thread titled "How to Keep Birds From Blueberries" originally posted on 5/24/11. Check out that post if you want more information about my bird exclusion system. Although I have seen a few chipmunks in the area, you can see I don't live in a wooded area and chipmunks are not a issue for me at this point. My foes are rabbits and robins. Proficiency with archery equipment keeps my yard rabbit-free (haters need not respond). Robins feed on the Japenese beetles and for whatever reason leave my raspberries and strawberries alone. But they would strip every berry off of an unprotected blueberry bush in one afternoon. So far my bird globes have baffled them.