Strawberry runners

I’m not much of a gardener as you know but one thing I do seem to be able to do is plant the plantlets on the runners from the strawberries so I can have nice new plants next year. As you can probably tell it is easy and the plants do most of the work which is what I like.

So take the long stems sprouting from your strawberry plants and simply place the plantlets on them into a pot of compost, I push them into the compost and they do fine but occasionally one wants to pop up and go somewhere else, weigh them down with a stone if they look like they want to do that. Pick the best plantlet to plant and cut off any runner beyond that. Keep them watered when dry and protect them from the cold. When they are rooted the runners die, just cut them off at that point and move them to a convenient spot.

In the spring I then plant them where I want them to be. I use grow bags for convenience but if not then replace the dead plants first, then the older ones until you have replaced all the plants or have run out of new plants. As there seems to be several runners per existing plant this usually leaves an excess of new plants and thus I plant some more somewhere by putting down a new growbag. You can never have too many strawberries.

This way keeps the plants going without having to buy new ones, the problem is though that I mix up the different varieties and have no idea what each plant is. Strawberries taste nice though which is what counts.

One thing that I find ironic is that behind one of my compost bins an errant runner rooted. Over the years it has produced the tastiest and largest strawberries I collect. It stays there, year after year, sending out plants and providing strawberries. Unwatered, unprotected from frost and all I do is take the runners and the fruit. It does better than the ones I protect which makes a very loud statement.