Hi Tui, can you please tell me why my strawberries are sour? Thanks.

Hi Sherie, there could be several reasons for your strawberries not having good flavour. One is the strawberry variety you have planted, some varieties are sweeter than others. See here for the list of varieties you can grow and a brief description of each. Strawberries need a free draining soil, they don't like "wet feet" and maximum sunshine to sweeten the berries, make sure your plants are in full sun, regularly watered and fertilised. Feeding strawberries with a fertiliser that is rich in potassium (potash) will help sweeten the fruit. Because they are gross feeders they can be fed every 4-6 weeks with a specialty strawberry fertiliser such as Tui Strawberry Food or every 9 weeks with Tui Novatec Premium fertiliser. Wet, cold weather followed by hot temperatures can also influence fruit flavour, apply Tui Seaweed Plant Tonic every 2-4 weeks during the growing season to help plants withstand temperature fluctuations and help improve fruit flavour. The Tui Team.