Perhaps the best way to get started here is going about getting real pineberry starts. Don’t get taken for a ride by people selling Pineberry seed. Better yet, ignore the black and blue strawberry seeds! The images are photoshopped on the latter, and you can’t get pineberry plants from seed.
No, this isn’t a cross between a pineapple and a strawberry, nor is it genetically modified. A pineberry is known in nomenclature as, Fragaria x ananassa. It is a conventionally created cross between two distinctly different types of strawberries, a.k.a. a hybrid, which will never reproduce true from seed. Perhaps on a rare occasion, but don’t ever count on it. Growing pineberries from seed will give you an assorted lot. The majority of your seedlings will be U.S. native Fragaria virginiana, or the Chilean Fragaria chiloensis strawberry. The fruit in that image to the left are white alpine strawberries, Frageria vesca var. albocarpa, but these aren’t pineberries. Note the white seeds? They are also much smaller fruit, and look to be about the size of a dime when ripe. The variety known as “Anablanca” falls into the F. vesca type. One perk of this white berry bearing type is it will produce fruit in partial sun outdoors, meaning that you can get a harvest with less energy hungry grow lights. But, as with all crops grown indoors, the stronger your light, the heavier your harvest will be. True pineberry fruits are larger – about the size of a U.S. quarter, but there are 3 different pineberry varieties. The one known as “White D” has a bit larger fruit than the other 2 named varieties; “White,” and “White Carolina”.
You can get pineberry plants from mail order seed houses in both the UK and US. Stock is generally available for fall shipping. Because these are still a novelty in the gardening world, you might think the price for 3 bare-root starter plants ridiculous. Part of this has to do with being in short supply, and the price isn’t that bad considering you will be able to start new plants by the boatload once your first crop begins shooting out runners. In fact, unless you commit some unpardonable grower’s sin in the eyes of these rugged plants – you’ll never have to shell out another penny to increase your pineberry crop. So, it’s really a very inexpensive investment in fresh deliciousness for many years to come.