Smulgubbe – a cross between strawberries and wild strawberries

Photo from last year.

Spring is slowly approaching and I can’t wait for all garden plants to wake up after the winter. My favourite berry, smulgubbe (Fragaria × vescana), is a cross between strawberries (Fragaria ×ananassa) and wild/woodland strawberries (Fragaria vesca). The Swedish name for strawberry is jordgubbe and the name for wild strawberry is smultron, hence the name smulgubbe. The flavour, imagine eating a strawberry and a wild strawberry at the same time, is absolutely fantastic and I can’t imagine a summer without them. The variety that I have, Rebecka, produce berries through out the whole summer season. I grow them in containers hanging on the trellis so that I can easily access them everytime I go out on my deck. During winter I half bury the whole containers so they’ll survive the cold. The plants produce a few runners, but not as many as strawberry plants usually do, so you’ll eventually get more plants. If you live in Stockholm, you can find Rebecka plants during late spring at the garden center Zetas and probably also the one called Slottsträdgården Ulriksdal, two of my favourite places in Stockholm.