Last spring, we planted some Sparkle strawberries to replace the late-season variety we hated (Allstar), which in turn had replaced the mediocre late-season variety Jewel.  Time for a rundown on the pros and cons of this new type of strawberry!

As you can see from the photo above, one of the major advantages of Sparkle is that the plants are very productive.  I grow strawberries in the hill system, removing all runners and giving the plants plenty of space, so I always get lots of big berries from each plant.  But our Sparkle planting takes the cake in terms of pure quantity of fruit!  (The plants produced just as many runners as berries, though, so if you hate plucking runners, this might not be the variety for you.)

Taste is another major advantage.  Sparkle is one of the sweetest strawberries I've ever tasted, and although it lacks the fuller-bodied flavor of Honeoye, it compares favorably with Ozark Beauty.  (You can read more about flavor of the strawberry varieties we've tried here.)  Mark says he likes Sparkle even better than our other varieties, while I rank it on the same level.

Where did the Sparkle berries fail?  Well, the plants don't really seem to be a late-season variety, despite being listed as such on Nourse Farms website.  The Sparkles are ripening up in the mid-season, just a hair behind the first Ozark Beauties, which means that the variety won't extend our strawberry season as late into the summer as I'd hoped.  (Actually, as I go look at Nourse Farms' site, I see that Sparkle is now listed as "late midseason" instead of "late season."  Not sure if they changed the site or if I just made a mistake when researching.)  Maybe next year I'll consider adding another variety that is a truly late-producer.

Less importantly (at least to me), Sparkle berries are so soft and luscious that it's hard to even pick them off the vine without damaging the berries.  I guess that's really only a disadvantage to Mark since I often eat damaged berries as I pick rather than risking them going bad during the two minute journey into the house.  Gotta protect those berries....