Well, it’s that time of the year where we get to talk about one of our most favorite garden treats! Strawberries!
Yes, even up here in zones 2 and 3 we can grow strawberries! Specifically, we exclusively grow the Toklat variety. Bred out of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Toklat is the hardiest of strawberry varieties ever created! This variety can be difficult to find outside of Fairbanks, Alaska with your best bet being to find a grower that will offer you runners. They are not frequently commercially sold outside of very niche marketeers.
We actually did try to grow other strawberry varieties. When we initially established our strawberry garden, we also planted a couple other varieties. Well, the Toklat’s pulled a scene out of Highlander and determined “there shall be only one!” It quickly took over and has been the staple of our strawberry garden for years.
We find the Toklat’s to be exceptionally sweet, they produce a very lovely strawberry flavor that’s great for jams, jellies, compotes and of course, fresh eating. They aren’t particularly field hardy, though, so it’s important to pick them sooner than later. We usually know it’s time when the birds start descending on the strawberries. Wait too long and they’ll spoil or go to opportunistic animals!
Most seasons, the harvest is quite prolific. Like with most plants, a warmer season will tend to produce greater numbers of fruit, whereas cooler seasons tend to suffer more. Regardless, though, this variety is a very strong cold climate producer and we’re glad to be growing this variety.
They do have a bit of range for their harvest times, with the majority of the harvest occurring in July. We usually get one to three “waves” of strawberries, with lesser and lesser numbers producing in each wave. But, during the harvest season, we’re performing regular checks and harvesting those ripe ones as soon as we can.
We’ve found Toklat’s tolerant of most growing styles. They’ll handle more traditional planting directly in compost laden subarctic soils. They’ll also handle raised beds just as well, though we commonly cover them with straw at the end of the season for a little bit of insulative protection. Strawberries aren’t typically prolific feeders, so we keep our nutrition to basic compost infusions only.
You might note that we’ve allowed our strawberries to sort of take over our wood chip walking paths. They seem to grow quite well this way, but are also easily removed. This is where we usually pull our runners from since they aren’t deeply established and there’s less risk of damaging the roots. Plus, this bumps up our harvest by quite a bit!
We’re excited about this year’s harvest. We still have quite a bit of freezer jam at the ready, so these are likely going to get scarfed down and perhaps put onto some delightful strawberry shortcake desserts. We generally prefer to eat them fresh anyway, it’s a highlight of our summer season!
