Black raspberry seedlings and wild strawberries

In September 2019 someone kindly posted me some seeds.  They were seeds of some strawberries (most likely Fragaria virginiana) that had been collected from the wild, some black raspberries (Rubus occidentalis), and saskatoon.

I have eaten wild strawberries in the Arctic many years ago.  These are a different species to the woodland strawberry.  The berries were about the size of my little finger nail, some were pointy, some were round, and they tasted better than anything I have ever eaten.  I grow a few different strawberries that taste incredible, but none of them can compare the the ones I ate in the arctic.  So I hoped that these wild collected strawberries would come close in terms of taste. 

Raspberry are notoriously difficult to germinate.  They do far better after scarification and cold wet stratification.  Both strawberry and saskatoon germinate better after stratification.  I put the raspberry seeds through several different types of acid scarification, put all the seeds on damp paper towel in zip lock bags, labelled everything, and put them in the fridge for a few weeks of cold wet stratification.

Then, life knocked me down pretty badly, and I forgot about my seeds.  In September 2020 I remembered about my seeds in the fridge.  The saskatoon seeds had all germinated and died, as had a small number of strawberry seeds.  The rest of the seeds did nothing, presumably after spending a year in the fridge on damp paper they were all dead.  None of the raspberry seed had germinated.  I figured they were all dead, I figured it was a lost cause.

There was a small chance one or two may have survived, so I planted them.  I had low hopes of anything happening after so long, so I planted them all together, strawberry and raspberry in the same pot.  Nothing labelled.  There was no real point, the chances of even a single strawberry seed germinating was very low.

Strawberry seedlings and Black raspberry seedlings

Then the most incredible thing happened, some seeds germinated.  Then a lot more germinated.  Nothing was labelled or separate, but a good number germinated.  Most were probably strawberry seedlings, which I was very excited about.

As they grew their first leaves some plants looked different, I wondered if they were the black raspberry.

As the seedlings got larger more seeds germinated, then more, then a few weeks later even more germinated.  Other than the saskatoon (which all germinated and died in the fridge) it looks like almost all of the seeds have germinated.  This was completely unexpected, I am really glad I had not thrown the seeds away!  

I now have a small number of black raspberry seedlings, and a good number of wild collected strawberries.  Some of the strawberries are growing runners at less than two months old!

My plants are larger than the photo above.  It is still just a pot of mixed seedlings.  I am waiting for the last of the seedlings that are still tiny to grow a bit larger before I try to separate anything.  I would hate to lose them at this stage.

If all goes well from here I should get to taste the wild strawberries this summer, and it will likely be another year or so before the black raspberries are old enough to fruit.  This is very exciting!