Strawberry Ostara (everbearing) - Fragaria ananassa

The 'Ostara' strawberry produces medium-sized, conical fruits with tender and juicy flesh and excellent taste quality. It is a highly productive, perpetual variety, meaning it produces strawberries multiple times from June until the first frost in October. The plants resist common strawberry diseases and also have the unique characteristic of preferring slightly alkaline soil, unlike most strawberries that prefer acidic soil.

Strawberries can be consumed in multiple ways: they can be eaten fresh, with sugar, cream, or sliced thinly and dried to be added to muesli or yogurt. If you have a bountiful harvest, you can also make jams, sauces, pies, ice cream, or sorbets. Strawberries can also be frozen.

There are three categories of strawberry varieties:

- Woodland strawberries or perpetual strawberries, producing small fruits from June to October

- Non-perpetual large-fruited varieties, flowering once a year in spring and producing very large fruits around June

- Perpetual large-fruited varieties, flowering twice a year or continuously, producing large fruits from June to October

In fact, the wild strawberry or woodland strawberry, present during Roman times and the medieval period, was crossed in the 18th century with a species brought from Chile, resulting in different large-fruited varieties through successive selections.

The strawberry is a hardy perennial belonging to the Rosaceae family. This variety has a sturdy habit, with persistent, ovate, and dentate trifoliate leaves. It produces small white flowers with a golden center that transform into large red fruits. Botanically speaking, strawberries are considered pseudocarps, with the achenes (seeds) appearing on the surface of the skin.

For harvesting, pick the fruits as they ripen, every 2 or 3 days ideally in the morning. Strawberries are delicate, so pick them with their calyx by pinching the stem 1 to 2cm above it. The texture of the fruit is a good indicator of ripeness. It should be firm and slightly soft when pressed. Strawberries are rich in vitamins and minerals. They can cause urticating effects in some individuals as they stimulate histamine release in the body.