I grew some aplines from seed last year since they seemed rather expensive to buy as plants. They don't runner and spread like garden strawberries, so you will need a lot more of them.

Since mine were started from seed last year, I am probably not the best to comment on yield - my young plants did produce a few berries though. I mostly planted them as an edible ground cover / border so I am not overly concerned with how many berries I get. I will say that they did taste very good... so I am starting some more this year to plant under my grapes. To me, they are an attractive ground cover - the berries are a bonus that my 4 year old LOVES to hunt for and pick... probably her favorite garden activity.

Thanks, Backyardener! How did you find starting them from seed to be? I'm not particularly accomplished at seed starting yet- probably about 70% of what I try makes it past germination. What I read about starting these guys from seeds seemed a little beyond my abilities, but maybe you found it to be easy? I had them figured as my "splurge" plants this year. As for your 4 year old, I can totally relate! It's probably because my parents took me hunting wild strawberries as a kid that I'm so excited by the idea of these alpines! Good memories... :)

I didn't find them very difficult to grow from seed, and I am growing more from seed this year. I got seeds from thestrawberrystore.com, the seem to have the best selection that I can find.

I put them in the freezer for about a week before sowing - this helps the seed to break dormancy. I put about 3 seeds in each cell of a 36 cell tray with sterile starter mix. They did take a LONG time to sprout and they grew VERY slowly. I didn't have grow lights, just a VERY BRIGHT south-facing window. I know they would be much better off under lights, but I did succeed. I only had 2 or 3 cells without "viable" transplants.

I put "viable" in quotes because I remember when I was planting the tiny seedlings outside I was thinking "there's no way these little guys are going to survive"... but they did! I was just outside yesterday cleaning up the garden a bit and they look pretty good - I'm sure they will give me a lot more berries this year. I bought grow lights this year for my other seedlings, so we'll see if the alpines I start this year will grow better than last year.

If you must have berries this summer, the seed route might be a little risky, but the number of plants you will get for the price makes it worth the gamble to me. Maybe buy a couple plants and start some seeds. It depends how much area you have for these. If going to seed route, you should order/buy them now and start them soon. I have seen them on the seed racks locally this year, but you might have to search a few stores to find them (if you don't want to order them).

You can buy the seed locally at a farm store here in town.

I'm growing some from seed right now. They sprouted already and are still really small. I've never had much luck getting them to go, so i hope to change that this year.

When i was younger, i would go with my brother and pick wild strawberries.

I had an alpine berry patch for about fifteen years. They are runnerless. The berries are quite small compared to commercial table berries, but the flavour is intense! Mine bore pretty well, and tended to be everbearing, but since they didn't all come on at once, I lost a lot of them to chipmunks, who would wait until the berries were a few days shy of ready and then eat them. LOL.

I'd have enough at one time to use nearly daily for cereal or to decorate a trifle or something, but only one year did I get enough all at once to make jelly. It should've won a prize, because it was so intense and delicious you wanted to slap your Mama every time you took a bite on toast.

The area finally became too shaded for them to grow well, and I am into serious home canning, so last year we ripped the bed out and I made a large, new berry bed in a sunny spot with market-type berries. I will say, that I planted the alpines essentially as ground cover, and the berries were the bonus. It was an attractive bed.

Yes, I started them from seed. They were not difficult, but I am a professional grower, so I don't know how easy they'd be in other than a greenhouse environment.

I've got a plot of alpines that I grew from seed 5+ years ago. I found them pretty easy, but I also found that exclusively white alpine strawberries seemed to produce about 1/3 red-fruited plants.

I would guess I have about 15-20 plants (and to make up for any losses I divide plants in the spring) Were I smarter I'd label just the white fruited plants and work at dividing only them. I get enough berries for me and my 4 year old to share each day it seems for most of the early summer.

They are among my favorite fruit in the garden and certainly my son's favorite.

I got mine from pinetree seeds.

~Chills

Thank you all for your responses!

I see that in general these were chosen as a groundcover, with the berries being incidental! I want to provide some fruit for my family, and it's difficult on my 1/2 shaded, small, suburban plot! These, especially the white ones, sounded likely to work (birds are a problem here, especially with anything red!). There are a lot of wild-type strawberries (bland and tasteless) in the spot I'm thinking of putting these, so I'm fairly confident they'll produce... I suppose a white "regular" strawberry would too, but I don't know of any and I bet they don't have the same flavor-full reputation!

Oh, and I forgot earlier, but I just about snorted tea out my nose at the description of the flavor as "smack-your-Momma" good! Thanks calliope!

Three years ago I planted 3 white alpine strawberry plants from Papa Genos Herb Farm, that I found online. They put out runners. The patch is now about 10 feet X 8 feet. These gems grow in semi shade [west of a black walnut tree], block out weeds, and produce lots of very pale gold 3/4" berries that taste marvelous first thing in the morning. About half the crop is visible on top of the plant and the production season is about 11-12 weeks long. Last year this patch produced about 3/4 -2 cups of berries a day. Nothing else with edible parts will grow in this spot so this is great and oh boy are they hardy. After a long winter of deep snow and frigid temps here in Spokane [down to 3 degrees just last week, followed by three successive hail storms] they are up, green and going on day one of Spring. Just water and weed the first year.

Has anyone tried the variety Alexandria, especially to compare to the 2 Italian ones- Fragola di Bosco and Fragola Quattro Stagioni (Four Seasons). Johnny's has Alexandria and I'm already ordering some trellis netting from them so I wouldn't have to pay another shipping charge.

We grow the white ones as a ground cover on the sloped, sunny parts of our orchard. They seed down readily, and I simply transplant the babies where I want them.

I find them to produce for an amazingly long season- they were the first things to fruit in the spring, and we had berries until first frost here. My boys love them, and spend 1/2 hour per day all summer "cherry-picking" the bigger ones. There are always more than they can eat, and the activity keeps them so busy!

As a side note, we haven't seen any red-fruited plants amongst our seedlings. We purchased the initial 3 plants from Raintree Nursery, and now have at least 100.