Q.Gnarly Strawberries
I was given some strawberries by a friend and I threw them in the ground where I know there is not enough sun, but since I live in a condo it was the only place I could snag for them. They didn’t produce last year but this year I have a lot of them for the few plants I have and they are very sweet. However, 2/3 of them are gnarly looking. How to describe. . .they have bumps on them, but they have grown that way kind of misshapen into blobs of a strawberry shape with these gnarly little nobs. They taste fine though. Any idea why?
Certified GKH Gardening Expert
It sounds like you have a plant that is prone to fused blossoms. What you essentially have is siamese twin (triplet, quadruplets, etc) fruit. The plant produced flowers that were fused together and the fruit grow together into rather knobby, blob like shapes.
It is not harmful and the fruit is just as tasty. Just a little ugly is all. It is common on plants like tomatoes, but can happen on any flowering plant. Most of the time you will see just one or two, but you can get an oddball plant occasionally that is prone to producing like that.
