All season the strawberries have been pretty bland until now, make that crap and not bland.   $1.50 a punnet now and they are the best of the season.   Finally!!

A lot of work goes into strawberry farming and it's a back breaking chore.  We almost bought a strawberry farm once and tried it out for a few days prior to purchase.   Found out really fast that it was NOT anything we wanted to do   

$1.50 a punnet including the packaging.   I wonder why anyone even bothers growing them commercially anymore.

Strawberries are probably the same as other fruits.

If you grow them with lots of water trying to get size into the fruit, the plant does not work hard enough.

If you cut back the water the plant has to work harder extracting water from the soil, it does this by increasing the sugar concentration in its cells, which helps the water cross the cell membranes from low concentrations of solutes to higher concentration (sugar in the cells).

So when it heats up the plants will be working harder, plus extra sunshine will help.

I had to monitor the water very closely to maintain the sugars in my produce.
Trouble is very few other growers did and the public just stop buying fruit because they cant tell the difference between good and bad.

I can tell by looking at the name on the box, some growers are just grubs, you would never buy their rubbish.

Its a pity the name of the grower is not prominently displayed in the shops anymore.

The variety should also be displayed as some varieties are just rubbish.

Many Strawberries nowadays are hydroponically grown. This makes them large and unfortunately bland in taste.  I prefer to buy my Strawberries from Farmers' Markets and make sure they are the smaller ones 'cause that means they are grown in soil and have much more flavour to them.

The worst thing is how easily they bruise which makes them such hard work.  You pick then have to sort through them to keep/discard, then refrigerate.  Then the next morning you have to sort again for the bruised ones you missed.

Nooooo Rovral is one day withholding for strawberries, nil for stonefruit,,, I got that wrong

Brian Ross wrote on Aug 29^th, 2018 at 3:06pm:



I agree not much flavor  but that goes for most fruit....

no smell either

I think its to do with everything being refrigerated....\


strawbs today in woollies $1  how much is the poor grower making    I would think picking strawbs  would the the worst job.....I felt guilty buying them at that price..to be honest and you still had to sort through them 
SO WHEN WERE THEY PICKED mike??...this is what they are not telling us.....

I believe the supermarkets have a lot of say in when fruit is picked   its not right....the people that grow the stuff know whats best.....and most fruit ripens   which means TASTE  on the tree or vine..

its sad what we are doing to fruit growers..   as a consumer I have no choice but to go to the shops....even our markets here are pretty much the same as the shops..

$1 a punnet a couple of weeks ago and now there are none to be seen as they are all being dumped due to the needle campaign.

What a shame!!

What sort of values are these idiot young kids being taught copy-catting this behaviour and thinking it is fun?  They need a kick up the ass!!

I got some today at Woolies for $1.50 and they are actually sweet and tasty.  I did check the local fruit market first but the ones they had didn't look so good.