Strawberry season! Pick them right and make the harvest last
Mid-June is peak strawberry season. Pick the right way and you'll get far more flavour from your patch — plus three easy ways to preserve whatever doesn't get eaten on the spot.
Few things taste as much like summer as a sun-warmed strawberry straight from the raised bed. Especially with kids, the strawberry harvest is the highlight of June — as long as you know when to pick and what to do with the glut. Here is a practical guide to full bowls without the mush.
## When to pick
Strawberries do not ripen after picking — a half-red berry stays half-red and bland. Wait until the fruit is deep red all over, including the tip and under the green cap. The best time is late morning on a dry day: the dew has dried off and the berries are not soaked from rain, so they keep noticeably longer.
Always pick with the cap and a small piece of stem attached. If you pull the berry off without it, the skin tears and the fruit starts leaking juice within hours.
## Picking with kids — no mush in the basket
The trick: pinch the stem, never pull the fruit. Show the kids how to nip the stem just above the berry between thumb and index finger — the fruit itself never gets squeezed. A little game helps too: only the fully red ones get picked, the rest are allowed one or two more days of colouring up in the sun.
For the container, choose a shallow tray over a deep bucket. Strawberries tolerate two layers at most — any more and the weight crushes the bottom layer.
## Three ways to make the harvest last
Fridge (2–3 days): Unwashed, cap on, loosely arranged in a shallow dish in the vegetable drawer. Only wash right before eating — water softens the skin and speeds up mould.
Freezing (up to 10 months): Wash the berries, drain well, remove the caps and pre-freeze them individually on a tray. Only then transfer to a freezer bag — they will not stick together and you can take out exactly the portion you need. Perfect for smoothies and desserts.
Quick purée: Blend overripe or bruised fruit with a splash of lemon juice. Keeps three days in the fridge, months in the freezer in ice-cube trays — a family favourite as a sauce for pancakes, ice cream or yoghurt.
## After the harvest: set up next year now
Once the main harvest is done, a quick care round pays off: refresh the straw mulch under the plants and consistently remove diseased leaves and rotten fruit — this noticeably lowers grey mould pressure for next season.
Let the strongest runners root now and transplant them as young plants from July onwards. Strawberries crop best in their second and third year — raise a few runners every season and you will keep a permanently young, productive row.
## Record your harvest success
Note down which row produced how much — after two or three seasons you will know exactly which variety and which spot in the bed works for you. In Rootivo you can do this right on the bed: log the quantity per plant with the harvest action, and capture the strawberry afternoon, photo included, in the garden journal.
Im Lexikon: Erdbeere