The Best Type of Strawberries to Grow Inside

Strawberries are a great plant to grow indoors for edible fruit growing all year round. You can choose to grow your strawberries exclusively inside, or you can set yourself up to grow them inside in the winter and colder months and then move operations outside when things warm up again.

There are many possibilities for strawberry growers, but what type of strawberries should you grow if you want to grow strawberries inside?

Jump to:

• Why Growing Off-Season Strawberries is Better (for You and the Environment)
• Choose Everbearing or Day Neutral Strawberries for Indoor Growing
• Choose strawberry varieties for continuous production for growing indoors
• Everbearing strawberries for indoor growing
• Day Neutral: The best type of strawberry plants to grow inside
• Traits and Characteristics That Make Day Neutral Strawberries Best for Indoor Growing
• 6 Good Strawberry Varieties for Growing Inside

Why Growing Off-Season Strawberries is Better (for You and the Environment)

Growing strawberries outside during the growing season makes a lot of sense, as perennials that only need replanting every three to five years or so, you can get a lot of harvest without a lot of constant upkeep.

Growing inside is a little less “set it and (nearly) forget it.”

However, there are good reasons to grow strawberries inside for winter and off-season eating.

• Commercially grown strawberries are high (and often the highest) on the list of “dirty” foods with high chemical residues
• Commercial strawberries are often sturdy but less tasteful varieties
• Commercial strawberries are frequently picked underripe, so they’ll last longer in shipping
• Strawberries picked underripe cannot ripen any more after picking
• Shipped strawberries in many countries travel an average of 2,000 miles or more
• Quality suffers in commercially grown and shipped strawberries
• Flavor suffers a lot, especially in berries picked less than at their peak of ripeness (which they often are because berries that travel thousands of miles that are ripe, fresh, and juicy don’t hold up well!)
• Grocery store and off-season strawberries are expensive!

Fortunately, with a simple home light setup, you can easily grow strawberries indoors throughout the year.

While we are mostly thinking about winter growers in cold climates, the same method can be used in places that struggle with high heat and high temperatures in the summer.

Choose Everbearing or Day Neutral Strawberries for Indoor Growing

So the question becomes — what kind of strawberries should you plant if you want to grow them indoors?

There are basically three types of strawberries: June-bearing, Everbearing, and Day-neutral.

Each type is good in its own way. But for certain types of growing, one can outshine the other. This is the case for growing indoors.

For growing indoors, June-bearing strawberries are not the best type to grow. And of the remaining two, one is better than the other for several reasons.

Choose strawberry varieties for continuous production for growing indoors

For indoor growing, it only makes sense to grow a type of strawberry that can give you continuous production.

June bearing strawberries only bear for a period of about two to three weeks. This works out when you’re growing outside, and you have ample room to plant and pick a big harvest. When you’re growing inside, though, you’ll be growing in limited space.

So, you’ll want to get the longest harvest possible from each plant. Since you won’t be reaping a big harvest all at once, you’ll want to extend that harvest, and the way to extend strawberry harvests is to grow a long-bearing type of berry.

Furthermore, if you’re growing strawberries inside, we have to assume you’re doing that because you want a pretty steady, continuous supply of strawberries, mostly for fresh eating. That is something you get with everbearing and day-neutral types of strawberries.

Everbearing strawberries for indoor growing

Strawberry varieties that are listed as “everbearing” will grow berries more than once in a season. For the most part, they will have a large flush of berries when they first hit productive age; then, they will slow down (and possibly stop) for a time, then have another large flush.

Outside, these larger flushes come roughly in June and in the early fall, around September. Some varieties will produce a trickle of berries in between, and some won’t do much between the two production flushes.

Everbearing strawberries make fair indoor plants because you will get to pick strawberries at least twice, and often longer, while they are growing indoors.

Everbearing strawberries will produce sizable berries that are larger than day-neutral and rival the size of June-bearing strawberries (but will be a little smaller).

Day Neutral: The best type of strawberry plants to grow inside

Day-neutral strawberry plants beat out everbearing strawberries because they have steadier production in indoor settings. Day neutrals are the best type of strawberries to grow indoors.

Day-neutral strawberry plants are improved varieties of everbearing strawberries. They are selected for traits that allow them to grow strawberries for an entire season or for as long as their preferred growing and berry-producing conditions are present.

As such, they do not need a set number of hours of daylight in order to produce (though they will need at least six hours of sun or supplemental light for plant health and productivity).

Whereas most strawberry plants respond to the length of the day to produce berries and perform other biological tasks like propagating runners, day-neutral strawberries do not. They don’t produce runners to speak of. They focus on producing flowers and berries, which they do more in response to temperature than long versus short days.

What stops day-neutral strawberries from producing is high heat. This would be temperatures over 85℉ (29℃). Day-neutral strawberries do best in “cooler” periods of the growing season. This is why they will produce more berries early and late in the growing season when grown outdoors. But as long as temperatures remain moderate, they’ll continue to produce in the middle of summer, too.

High heat is not an issue for these plants when you are growing them inside, especially when you are growing them in your home or in a temperature-controlled environment. You would not live in a temperature that high.

The ideal growing range for day-neutral strawberries, and hence the ideal fruit production range, is between 45 and 85℉ (7 and 29℃). The typical home is kept around 70 to 72℉.

That means that the average comfortable indoor temperature is smack in the middle of the ideal range for everbearing strawberry plants. Even homes that are kept cooler are well within the ideal productive range for day-neutral strawberry plants.

The bottom line? If you’re comfortable, they’re comfortable.

If there is a “drawback” to growing day-neutral strawberries, it is only that the berries themselves are a little smaller and a little less abundant as compared to June-bearing strawberry varieties and in comparison to everbearing types (though to a lesser degree).

However, the difference is not that appreciable. Also, the smaller berries tend to have a much better strawberry flavor. When the alternative is underripe, bland berries that traveled thousands of miles to get to you, a steady supply of flavorful day-neutral strawberries is a clear advantage and a clear winner.

Traits and Characteristics That Make Day Neutral Strawberries Best for Indoor Growing

• Extended production period
• Respond well to the consistent, controlled temperatures of homes (or other indoor environments)
• Capable of producing berries for several months
• Sweet and flavorful strawberries
• Blossoming and fruit production do not depend on light hours or length of day (or daylight)
• Maximizes the work and time inputs for growing the plant to the production stage
• Produce few or no runners, so energy is focused on flower development and fruit production (runners on indoor plants would serve little purpose anyway)

6 Good Strawberry Varieties for Growing Inside

Any day-neutral strawberry is a good candidate for growing inside, but to be more specific, here are some proven and popular varieties:

• Albion
• Seascape
• Evie II
• San Andreas

Of the everbearing varieties, Ozark Beauty has been a long-time favorite for flavor and production. Alpine varieties can be a good choice for very small spaces and tight quarters, but they typically grow smaller berries.