Good Enough to Eat: For best flavor, try Puget Summer strawberries

Last spring I set out 30 plants of a new, June-bearing strawberry named Puget Summer. Disappointment several years running with the flavor of Seascape, a highly touted day-neutral variety, prompted me to see what was new in June-bearing varieties.

On June 18 I picked the first of the new berries, selecting only the fully ripe ones. What a difference! Instead of the early season lack of aroma and bland taste of Seascape, here were berries with aroma, sugar and flavor. And I hadn't even kept these plants properly weeded!

If you're looking for the best-flavored strawberry to grow in your garden, choose Puget Summer. It won't produce all summer like the day-neutrals -- Seascape and Tristar -- but it should give you three or four weeks of wonderful eating.

Even if you don't grow your own or ever intend to, treat yourself to Western Washington-grown strawberries this month. They're in a different league than the imports, which are typically hard-fleshed (an advantage for shipping) and deficient in flavor.

If you are growing your own, here are a pair of summer management reminders:

First, keep the plants watered during the dry stretches of summer; this practice keeps the plants vigorous and in the case of June-bearers, aids in flower bud formation for next year's crop.

And fertilize day-neutral varieties lightly this summer, again in fall and not again until next spring. These varieties set buds throughout the growing season and need nutrients available throughout the season.

June-bearers set their buds in late summer for next year's crop. Fertilize them once a year in August. It's a mistake to fertilize June-bearers in spring; they use the nutrients then to make leaf growth, and fruiting suffers.

End to caterpillars?

If you're sick and tired of tent caterpillars and wondering when they'll go away, there are two answers. For the short term, they're going away now; the larger larvae have already spun cocoons and the smaller, more recently hatched ones will soon. The light brown, thick-bodied moths that hatch a week to 10 days after pupation won't harm plants, but they will reproduce. Whether the 'pillars will be around in numbers next spring depends on natural controls.

To learn whether the key natural control is working, conduct a caterpillar survey. Collect at least 50 tent caterpillars. Make this a random collection from as many plants on your grounds as the beasts are chomping. Once you have 50 or more, examine each larva carefully for a white egg or eggs on or just behind its head. White eggs mean tachinid flies are parasitizing the caterpillars. No caterpillar with an egg makes it to adulthood.

In the third year of the great tent invasion of the mid- and late '80s, I examined 100 caterpillars and found 67 sporting white eggs. And half the larvae with no eggs aboard looked sickly, probably from a viral disease that typically coincides with the parasites.

At some point, usually within three years, the combination of parasites, disease and normal moth predators finishes off an infestation. I don't know the precise rate of parasitism and incidence of disease that spell the end for the caterpillars, but the year after I counted the 67 eggs, there were no tents.

My informal survey of larvae from my grounds a week ago showed a rate of parasitism well under 10 percent. Based on that finding, I'm guessing they'll be back next spring. A reader from Kingston though, reported heavy parasitism of the caterpillars on her grounds. Chances are good the infestation may be over for her.

With much of the horde already pupating and the rest about to, there's nothing for people to do until the egg stage. Then we can begin picking off and destroying egg bands and masses from our most valued trees and shrubs. I, for one, will be looking more carefully for eggs this year than I did last. Wearing my glasses might help.

Chris Smith, who lives in Port Orchard, is a Master Gardener and is retired from the WSU Cooperative Extension. His columns appear in the P-I garden pages on Thursday. Send questions to P.O. Box 4426, South Colby, WA 98384-0426.

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