Thank you
And may God bless You.
Ariana

it sounds as though your sister’s weeds might be mock strawberry, Duchesnea indica, a look-alike plant often used as a ground cover and often found covering ground to which it has not been invited. The berries aren’t poisonous, but that’s about all that can be said for them. Easiest way to tell the difference is the color of the flowers: duchesnea’s are yellow, fragaria’s are white.

But what it is matters less than what it isn’t, which is tasty enough to bother with. Rip it out and plant something else - you can tell your sister I made you do it. F. vesca seeds usually sprout easily; but it can sometimes take quite a while. Keep the seedbed weeded while waiting or start the plants in flats and transplant them after they have about 6 leaves.

In fact, flats are definitely the way to go if you’re planting the same area. The current incumbent already has plenty of seeds in that ground and you don’t want any confusion about which baby is which.

But . . . horrors . . . they have NO TASTE at all! The plant is hardy, the yield good, the berries a lovely red . . . but completely worthless.

I’ve enriched the soil a lot with organic matter . . . it was originally sugar sand . . . so I’ve been hoping they’d improve. But so far, no luck. She’d love to have something worth picking. In fact, she wouldn’t let me eradicate them at the outset. Maybe I’ll try seeds from a “real” wild strawberry next year.