The strawberry
What you always wanted to know about strawberries
Nothing is what it seems
We call the well-known juicy strawberry a fruit. But nothing is what it seems: the red fruit or pulp of the strawberry is in fact a sham fruit. The seeds that you see on the outside of the strawberry are the actual fruits, or in fact they are tiny nuts with a hard shell around them.
The plants grow from these nuts. Flowers develop in the plants, which must be pollinated to get good strawberries. After pollination, the petals fall off, after which the base of the flower, the 'heart' of the flower, swells and grows into the strawberry we know. First the strawberry is green, then white and finally it gradually turns red.
Growing strawberry plants is often done by professional growers, but in the section 'grow it yourself' we explain how you can grow a plant from seed yourself. This way you can harvest your own fresh fruit within 5 to 6 months after sowing. Or should we say sham fruits…