I exercised my employee discount at work yesterday and purchased four northern high bush blueberry plants and six strawberry plants. The blueberry varietal breakdown is as follows:
- Vaccinium corymbosum 'Elliott'
- Vaccinium corymbosum 'Toro'
- Vaccinium corymbosum 'Darrow'
- Vaccinium corymbosum 'Duke'
All of these are of the northern high-bush type. Ideally, I wanted to get varieties that produced small to medium sized fruit as that's what's best for baking. Sadly, we didn't sell any that had that particular trait. Apparently, for the average consumer, bigger is better when it comes to blueberries.
For the strawberries, the varietal breakdown goes like this:
- 3 Fragaria virginiana x chiloensis 'Rainier'
- 3 Fragaria virginiana x chiloensis 'Tri-Star'
An interesting side-note about strawberries is that the common strawberry bush is actually a hybrid of the north american and chilean strawberry. The american parent provides the taste and the chilean parent provides the fruit size.
