Gardening: Reacquainted with strawberries  By Justin Newcombe
You may think you know them intimately but, as Justin Newcombe
discovered, strawberries have some strange secrets.  The
strawberry isn't actually a berry. Photo / Supplied The
strawberry isn't actually a berry. Photo / Supplied
Strawberries are, strictly speaking, not berries - which leaves
me feeling perplexed. They're actually the overburdened sexual
organs of the strawberry flower - in fact, not its own special
flower but part of the rosacea or rose family.  Confused? Well,
there's more. The little seed on the outside of the strawberry
(which is not a berry) are not seeds. No, they are little dried
fruit known as achenes. Finding out all this is like being
heartbroken by an old girlfriend. "I feel like we've grown
apart, it's like I don't know you anymore". The rather
distracted reply to this being that old line, "it's not you,
it's me".  The strawberry has a long history, dating back to
pre-Roman times but was thought largely inedible until c