Mara Des Bois French Everbearing Strawberry 50 Plants - Best Flavor! - Bare Root

We have been looking for these strawberries for a couple of years. Small berries always have the best flavor and these have amazing reviews everywhere. We could not find them anywhere until I thought to check Amazon. We ordered 50 Mara Des Bois French Everbearing Strawberry plants from Hirt's Garden a bit later in the season that was wise, and then had to store them in the frig or a couple of days while we finished building the boxes to plant them in. We separated the plants, trimmed off any slimy bits, and soaked them in water before storing them. We trimmed the roots right before planting. Every single plan survived and thrived! I'll update my review after we taste the fruit, but right now they are blooming and putting on berries.

Overall I'm happy with these. that many strawberry plants at that price is pretty sweet imoOne star docked : I only planted 42 because I received less than 50 and a couple were so so small and rootless. Of the 42, about 6 were very meager. The 6, as expected, are starting out much slower than the rest (futures questionable). The Good news is that the remaining 36 plants are bushing out nicely. All showed fresh growth within 24 hours of planting in a raised bed w/ good mix. 2 weeks now and they are well rooted and growing fast.Can't wait to try these berries and give extra plants away to friends.

I was skeptical at first because the strawberry plants took over a week to arrive in Alaska. However.........the plants did fine - there was more in the bundle that I ordered - and I had 100% survival - and this was the 3rd time we purchased strawberry plants from these folks. Very good customer support. !!

Great strawberries, everyone of them made it and they are full of leaves and some have flowers already.

I felt I must make a review to counter act the negative ones. I feel those reviews are lacking important details for how and why the plants suffered. I believe they had a bad environment and that is what produced their results. Okay, now to my review:So I just recieved these. They came faster than I had planned so I was stuck with quickly figuring out how I was going to grow these. So props for faster shipping than advertised, but also be warned you could be looking at 2/3 day shipping. So, be prepared in advanced. These do not come with any instructions for planting etc. Make sure you know what your going to do as for planting depth and spacing. I am not sure how these are going to grow. I am going to grow them under artificial lighting in the form of HID ceramic light. Stay tuned for the updates.So far as can be seen in the picture, these have already showed growth. Leaves are starting to form and green up the day after planting.I recieved these mid day. Couple hours after receiving I put some water in the bag because they looked pretty dry. I wanted to wait till next day because I was tired from work, but to keep the plants alive I prioritized preparing soil for planting. So late evening I was finally able to plant and the plants had been in their bag for 6 hours before they got where they were going.I used a custom mix of ingredients of coconut coir, peat moss, peralite, rock dust, 20 percent worm castings, and Dr Earth vegatables fert.I situated plants by directing their roots in a slightly horizontal plane and partially vertical in order to place the roots in more center of the grow bag. Please look at pictures to see the crown placement. I put them in close together because I will be removing runners, and I want to see if I can grow more in a smaller space to increase better use of light from HID. I am not going for a future yield so I will allow it to flower ASAP. One reviewer on here said theirs started flowering after a week in ground. I hope this happens to me.I will be back once they green up and then start flowering. I will most likely have to hand pollinate these as in indoors there is not the right kind of air movement for pollination.My growing environment is as follows:Temp range farenheit 70-79Humidity 38% AVG (very arid/dry)Lumans per square inch - not important at this stage.Decent air movement (small trickle on other plants leaves)I hope these taste as good as I've heard. I know artificial light won't be the same as sun, but hopefully close.

All but 10 of the original plants have crooked. I planted them in a greenhouse. You would think they would live in a controlled environment with good soil.

not one crown produced growth

The plants were of good quality and size. And the taste is probably the best our family has tasted.