Food for Free – Wild Strawberries

Cultivated Strawberries Versus Wild Strawberries

Wild and cultivated strawberries on slate

Tesco and Sainsbury’s may be selling more English strawberries this year, but you can’t beat our wild strawberries with no food miles and only seconds between picking and eating.In our wood we have just harvested our first wild strawberries of the year. As you can see from the photograph these wonderful little fruits are a fraction of the size of their cultivated brothers but their taste more than makes up for their petite size.

Foraging for Wild Strawberries

Gathering wild strawberries requires patience and a keen eye. These tiny fruits measuring less than a centimetre in length can be very difficult to find as they nestle amongst the leaves and undergrowth on the woodland floor, but the flavour hit they give means that they are worth looking for. The best time to forage for these glorious wild strawberries is in the middle of the afternoon, when the sun is still high giving as much light as possible into the wood which makes it easier to spot the fruits. Also, the wild strawberries seem to taste better if they have been warmed by the sun.

Wild strawberry flower

As you walk amongst the trees you can identify the wild strawberries by their trefoil leaf, the flowers, and of course the pinpoints of bright red. Both the leaves and the flowers look almost identical in shape and colour to a cultivated strawberry just smaller. Once you have found one strawberry look closely and you will find many more as they are often found in groups.  Be sure to look above and below the leaves for the tiny fruits.  When you have found your ripe wild strawberries, gently pick it from the plant, taking care not to pull the tiny plant from the ground.

How to Eat Wild Strawberries

The Collins Gem Food for Free book suggests adding wild strawberries to a glass of champagne, but for me I don’t think you can beat placing a freshly picked wild strawberry that is still warm from the afternoon sun on the tongue, closing your eyes and then squashing it against the roof of the mouth. The fleeting feeling in your mouth as the soft ripe strawberry bursts followed by the flavour erupting is truly sublime and one to savour.

Wild strawberry with flower and fruit

Transplanted Wild Strawberries

I love the taste sensation of wild strawberries so much that earlier this year I transplanted some from our wood into a border and strawberry planter close to the house.  It is fascinating seeing close-up how plants grow and develop differently depending on where they are.  With the strawberries that I have transplanted I have a lot more strawberries per plant however they are smaller and not ready to eat yet. I think it may have something to do with the lack of rain this year as whilst I have watered them in the evenings the soil is drying out in the day unlike that in the woods where the canopy of the oak, chestnut and cherry shelters them from the midday sun.