Thursday, July 2, 2026 | London 22°C · Clear
DailyGlimpse

June’s sunshine adds extra sweetness to bumper summer for UK strawberries

Lifestyle
July 2, 2026 · 1:33 PM
June’s sunshine adds extra sweetness to bumper summer for UK strawberries

Skip to main contentSkip to navigation

Close dialogue 1/1 Next image Previous image Toggle caption

Support the Guardian

Fund independent journalism

Support from $3.45 a weekSupport from $3.45 a week

Print subscriptions

Newsletters

Sign in

US

The Guardian - Back to home The Guardian

  • [x]

Show more Hide expanded menu

  • [x]

The weather has been ideal for strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, redcurrants and unusual breeds such as honeyberries. Photograph: Universal Images Group/Getty

View image in fullscreen

The weather has been ideal for strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, redcurrants and unusual breeds such as honeyberries. Photograph: Universal Images Group/Getty

Gardens

June’s sunshine adds extra sweetness to bumper summer for UK strawberries

Weather this year has encouraged smaller but earlier crops of sweet and bountiful fruit in gardens, RHS says

Helena Horton

Thu 2 Jul 2026 08.10 EDT First published on Thu 2 Jul 2026 07.43 EDT

Share

Prefer the Guardian on Google

If your bowl of strawberries and cream tastes particularly sweet this year, you’re not mistaken. It is a bumper summer for strawberries, with the recent weather conditions making them more abundant and delicious than ever, according to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).

Sales of strawberries are up 240% for 9cm pots and the weather has encouraged smaller but earlier, sweeter and more bountiful crops in gardens.

Summer picks: what to plant, harvest and eat right now Read more

The weather has been ideal for garden strawberries, according to the RHS. The fruit flowers before leafing, but over a long period, which this year meant strawberries were protected from the late frost in May while still getting the best of June’s sun. The result has been extra sweetness and earlier ripening. The same has been true for raspberries, gooseberries, redcurrants and whitecurrants – with blackberries and blueberries to follow later in the summer.

Gardeners have also been experimenting with unusual breeds of berries to make the most of the sun, the RHS said. Honeyberries have been particularly popular – the elongated blue fruits are said to taste like a mix of blackberries and blueberries.

Guy Barter, the chief horticulturist adviser for the RHS, said: “With a changing climate, gardeners are more confident in the potential of a strong crop and seeking out more unusual varieties including wineberries, honeyberries and pinkcurrants.”

Wineberry, an Asian breed of raspberry with shiny orange-red berries and a sherbet taste, is increasingly common in gardens. Translucent pink currants, the colour of rose quartz, are also selling well, according to the RHS. All of the sales of fruit plants are up 25% on last year.

The gardens owned by the RHS are starting to heave with fruit, including figs. In 2024, the fig plantation at RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey was moved outdoors after a period under glass and since conditions in the 1980s killed it off. It is now bearing fruit.

Grapes should ripen earlier than usual, the charity added, because of June’s weather. This is good news as the later grapes are harvested, the more at risk they are from the wet and cold of autumn.

Berries will also be the star of the show at the RHS Badminton flower show which begins next week. Delicate, wild strawberries will peek out of the greenery at the Ruskin Mill Trust’s artisan woodland craft garden. The Simon Deeves-designed garden – a celebration of compost and community – will also feature wild strawberries.

Wild strawberry is a native British plant, while the garden strawberry is a hybrid of two American varieties. The wild berries are small and intensely sweet, and were once the only type eaten in Britain. The Tudors and Stuarts gathered them from the wild and planted them in their gardens.

Though delicious, they were not a commercially viable crop. In 1822, the RHS launched its first citizen science project to find all the varieties of strawberries grown in its members’ gardens in an effort to discover the plumpest, juiciest variety, which helped growers come up with the descendants of the fruit we enjoy today.

Botanically, the strawberry is not a berry, but an aggregate accessory fruit.

The Feast app: your most useful kitchen utensil

Get inspired with more than 7,000 recipes from our world-class cooks and smart, exclusive features to make cooking a breeze: build your own recipe collections, create a shopping list, search smarter and cook hands-free with cook mode.

Whether you’re looking for:

•Ali Slagle's app-exclusive delicious summer dishes

•Tom Hunt’s smart ideas to cut your kitchen waste

•Nigel Slater’s simple meals for two, perfect for quiet nights in

•Yotam Ottolenghi’s global flavours for special occasions

… you’ll find all these and more in the Feast app.

Start your 14-day free trial today

Download now

Explore more on these topics

Share

Reuse this content

Most viewed

More on this story

More on this story

  • ### King signs up David Beckham to his Chelsea flower show team 11 Apr 2026
  • ### ‘Excellent size’: UK blueberry crop up nearly a quarter after warm spring 26 Jul 2025
  • ### RHS unveils plans to protect UK gardens from future water shortages 24 Jan 2026
  • ### Fruit stickers are annoying and bad for the environment. So why did an Australian ban come unstuck? 29 Jun 2025103 103 comments
  • ### The truth about fruit juice and smoothies: should you down them or ditch them? 26 Jun 2025
  • ### Plant trees, bushes and evergreens now to give your garden structure 23 Jan 202695 95 comments
  • ### Glut of early fruit and veg hits UK as climate change closes ‘hungry gap’ 2 May 2025
  • ### Green spaces should be the norm for all new housing developments in England, guidelines say 21 Jan 2026
  • ### Now is the perfect time to sort out your garden seeds, the Monty Don way 16 Jan 202671 71 comments
  • ### From kumquats to lime caviar: UK foodies embrace a whole new world of citrus 20 Apr 2025

More from Lifestyle

More from Lifestyle

  • ### Works of ‘civic generosity’: NSW architecture awards winners 2026 – in pictures 2h ago
  • ### Who am I rooting for most at the World Cup? A wise and gentle Italian referee 4h ago38 38 comments
  • ### My mother was an excellent care worker. Why did she end up marching with the EDL? 5h ago
  • ### You be the judge: should my girlfriend stop leaving piles of her hair and nails around the flat? 7h ago494 494 comments
  • ### Thursday news quiz: stolen saplings, legal happenings and a missing giraffe 9h ago387 387 comments
  • ### I visited seven themed bars in one week. Can ball pits and bingo save British nightlife? 10h ago208 208 comments
  • ### My mother has died and I can mourn her. That makes me one of the fortunate 10h ago
  • ### What’s really in a hotdog? Nutrition experts explain 22h ago
  • ### Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: still wearing stripes? It’s time to join the dots 1d ago95 95 comments

Most viewed

Most viewed

Most viewed Across the Guardian

  1. ‘Hugging is forbidden’: women jailed for life – in pictures

  2. Ohio authorities rescue 16 children confined to one room for four years

  3. Young Indonesian couple publicly caned after kissing on TikTok

  4. Valuable Spanish painting left on street salvaged by man who liked its frame

  5. Trump hijacked US’s 250 anniversary to serve ‘political ideology and pet projects’, congressional report says

  6. Live Anger as report says Trump hijacked US anniversary to serve own agenda – US politics live

  7. Vatican excommunicates all members of ultra-conservative rebel group SSPX

  8. A storm, overpriced food and a sad ferris wheel: inside Trump’s dreadful state fair

  9. Live Kyiv attacks death toll rises to 20 as Russia warns it will ‘continue to increase pressure’ on Ukrainian capital – Europe live

  10. A goal, a red and a LeBron James shout: Folarin Balogun gets the spotlight in US’s wild World Cup win

Most viewed in Life and style

  1. You be the judge: should my girlfriend stop leaving piles of her hair and nails around the flat?

  2. The sporty sex boom: how our summer of sport is sparking sizzling love affairs

  3. My mother was an excellent care worker. Why did she end up marching with the EDL?

  4. A new start after 60: I spent eight years thinking I had Parkinson’s. Then doctors ‘de-diagnosed’ me

  5. A moment that changed me: my grandpa risks his life to litter pick – and he taught me a profound lesson

  6. I visited seven themed bars in one week. Can ball pits and bingo save British nightlife?

  7. My rookie era: The Hunger Games made me think I’d be incredible at archery. So I picked up a bow to find out

  8. This is how we do it: ‘I expected to be a little old spinster, but kinky sex broadened my horizons’

  9. The pet I’ll never forget: Holly, the beagle who chewed her way through my home and into my heart

  10. I wish my son wanted to spend more time with me

Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning

Sign up for our email

Support the Guardian

Available for everyone, funded by readers

Support us

Back to top

© 2026 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.(dcr)

← More Lifestyle View original