On 18th December 2011 Mara de Bois strawberries are yielding fruit in the Catalan Barcelona. These strawberry plants, which I call Dioulettes, belong to Fragaria x ananassa, they are not alpine strawberries.
But there is also bad news. The absence of cold in Barcelona also allows less desirable things such as the arrival of red spider mites, which I show in the right picture. I will sprinkle these strawberries with 0,5% NEEM oil suspension, especially on the back side of the leaves and during the next days I will observe if the oil proves effective against the mites as well as non-phytotoxic against the strawberry plants.
