Runners from Strawberry plants

buckstar555

Hi Ive bought some Strawberry plants from Aldi. What I would like to know is will they produce runners? When I plant them as Ive never heard of these ones before? Anyway Im planning on gaining some new plants for next year as these plants are for early,main,late, produse. Thankyou for reading. Buckstar.:D

betterlife

yes they should do, i bought 4 or 5 strawberry plants last year from garden centre, i used them just for producing more plants for this year, i was only sorting them today infact and i think i counted 25 plants so not bad really.

peter_the_piper

Try not to take or leave any runners the first year as it will reduce the vigour of the plant. Remove any this year to allow it to produce more fruit and make a bigger plant for next year.

MrsAnnie

peter_the_piper wrote: »

Try not to take or leave any runners the first year as it will reduce the vigour of the plant. Remove any this year to allow it to produce more fruit and make a bigger plant for next year.

Do you remove each runner as soon as it starts to grow?

Sunnyday

When the runners are long enough i put a tiny pot of compost next to them and use a sandwich bag tie twisted into a u shape to pin it into the soil, they will root then and later the stem to the main plant can be cut.

HTH

SD

peter_the_piper

MrsAnnie wrote: »

Do you remove each runner as soon as it starts to grow?

Usually when its long enough to handle.

SuzieMum

Eeeeshk! My first yr doing strawbs and I can't believe how the tiny plants I bought have now quadrupled in size, only in a hanging basket (which still needs to be hung!). So whats exactly a runner?? Any pics would help me. I just thought they were growing so well and now I have to cut them down?! oh no! Help!

elliep_2

Using runners is the easiest way of increasing the number of plants you have and is how strawberry patches would increase in the wild. When the plants get big and strong enough they will produce a kind of stem with a couple of leaves and a few roots on the end. The stem will grow 20-30 cm long ish and if you pin it so the roots are in the compost then it will root itself and the connecting stem can be cut after a while and you got yourself a new plant.

There is no harm in doing this with all the runners your plants send out, except when your plant is young, you want it's energies to go into it's own roots and fruits rather than letting it spend all it's energy on making runners and therefore new plants.

teapot2

SuzieMum wrote: »

Eeeeshk! My first yr doing strawbs and I can't believe how the tiny plants I bought have now quadrupled in size, only in a hanging basket (which still needs to be hung!). So whats exactly a runner?? Any pics would help me. I just thought they were growing so well and now I have to cut them down?! oh no! Help!

Don't panic Mr Mannering don't have any pics but runners are like a very long stem that grows out of the plant and will eventually have a tiny new plant on the end. If you've ever had a spider plant indoors which has produced baby plants they are a bit like that. Just nip them out when you see them as you don't want runners before your plants have produed strawberries in the summer as the plant puts all its energy into producing runners. After you've scoffed all the strawbs then leave the plants and runners will grow and as others have said, you can peg these down in compost or soil to make new plants for next year. Enjoy