Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi all

I have some strawberries planted in a large tub on the patio. They are about 2 years old now and we have always had a few strawberries off them every summer. They were mostly planted to fill the tub originally and for a bit of fun for the kids, but now one of them has grown a very long vine heading across the patio.

What I need to know is, do I need to prune this before the winter? Or do I leave it to overwinter like this? If it spreads and makes more long vines, what do I need to do for it?

Also, this year it had a lot of yellow in the strawberry leaves. I would normally take this as a sign of malnutrition in a plant, except I don't know much about strawberries. Any ideas? Do I need to give it potash? bonemeal?

Thanks for any tips!!!!

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Changing the world, one plant at a time.

The long vines are runners and will grow into baby strawberry plants, why not secure them into pots then you will have more plants next year?
They reckon strawberries need to be replaced every 3 years for max crops, so keep the babies for the future.
The yellow leaves do come this time of year as the plants die back but can also be a sign of malnutrition, esp in pot grown plants. I'd certainly give the plants a feed in the spring.

As above.
Once strawberry plants are in their third year (as yours are), they can start to produce a lot of runners. These runners will put out a small cluster of leaves about every foot along their length and also some little spike-like roots below the leaves, which will rapidly root into anything they can.
Within a few weeks of rooting, the runners are well on their way to an independent life as a new plant.
Save some runners every year and use them to gradually replace older plants on a rolling rotation.

OK! Thanks FB and vicky!

So, if I wanted to pot them up as new plants, do I cut each section off (you were right, FB, they are about every foot along the length---impressive considering you haven't seen the vine! ) and repot them separately then? So I might get as many as 5 new baby strawberry plants for next year?

I'm assuming they'll overwinter ok, since they are perennials, even though they are babies. I have to go to the garden centre today anyway, so I'll get a bit of compost to put them in.

As for the mother plant, what do people usually do with her? I mean, repot the babies next spring and compost the mother? or keep the mother to make more new strawberry vines? Or what?

Also, if I compost the mother plant, then presumably I couldn't use that compost on the baby plants next year, since it would have strawberry-plant-eating bacteria in it, is that right?

Thanks mega for all your help!! Sorry to be a nuisance, but we tend to buy a lot of different plants to interest the kids in gardening, but this doesn't always mean I know what to do with all of them. Maybe by the time I have grandkids I'll have a clue.

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Changing the world, one plant at a time.

No dont cut the runners off the main plant untill they have rooted in the pot then you will have new plants.
I started doing this a while back and cut the runners off as I didnt have anywhere to put the pots with new plants and out of 80 only 34 survived. Yesterday I started to move the mother plants with the runners and potted up the runners next to them I only moved them because I want a bigger strawberry bed and I have rhubarb and blackcurrants that need more space.

Hi jackie

Thanks for this. My first thought was to treat them as I do little cactus rooters and cut them and pot them. I'll pot them first and then once they have rooted in the pot, I'll cut them off the mother plant.

Thanks again . . I know it sounds stupid to ask simple stuff like this, but there's still a lot I don't have experience with as regards fruit. Thanks for your patience and your help!

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Changing the world, one plant at a time.

i checked my strawberries after reading this, and i have 3 runners and 4 little rooted plants how exciting, and they did it all by themselves, aren't they clever ... i only had one plant this year, and it didn't have many berries, and son ate them ..... so at least next year i should be able to eat a few myself

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I have just been sorting out my strawberry bed again and potted up more runners, so far over 80 and split some plants into three or four, loads more to do, so I think I might car boot some of them. I started off with about 20 plants last year.
Glad to have helped grannysmith. someone told me this years ago, so now you will be able to pass this on when someone asks you. Live and learn so to speak.

How many runners per strawberry plant - my runners are now producing runners. Is it okay to get as many as possible from one mother plant or will the quality/quantity suffer.

kwa50
CraftChallenge.co.uk - Home

Each of the runners had more than one new plant that had roots already, and most plants had more than one runner. If they look weak then I will thro them away but so far all looking good.

normally if you let them produce runners they will put their energy into that rather than fruiting so you'll get fewer smaller fruits than if u cut out the runner plants as theyre growing

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"You never really understand a person until you look at things from their point of view, until you step into their skin and walk around in it" - Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird

I just checked mine and I have got about 6 little new plants per runner. This is my first time helping them root, so I put them in little pots each next to the mother plant in new compost, to overwinter. (some of them had reached out from their pot to the garden soil nearby and begun rooting there! I think they are clever too )

If they root before the winter (i.e. in a few weeks), should I cut them from the mum then? Or wait til spring and separate them off the main vine to the mum then? What do you think???

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Changing the world, one plant at a time.

Yup, that's what they do..it means you get plenty of fruit from some and you can leave the others to produce next year's plants.

I've done mine in 3 ways. Left some to root on their own; put some into pots and left until they have rooted and grown a new leaf or two before cutting off, and some I have rooted in water and potted up - all 3 methods work.

Don't sever the rooted baby until they are growing new leaves; then you know they are rooted and happy.

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Thanks zazen! I will see how the rooting goes and then sever them from the mum, maybe at the end of the autumn. Then I'll replace the mum, since a few people mentioned that it is a good idea to replace strawberry plants every few years.

If I can devote a small area of the garden to them, I might put them in the soil, but I am afraid they might take over if I gave them any space to really run wild. A few more big stawberry pots round the garden won't be a bad idea.

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Changing the world, one plant at a time.

With regards to feeding liquid grow more is good feed every 3 weeks from march fortnightly when the flowers show and once it starts making a noticible berry weekly i also mix a little pot ash in some water and feed once a month from march to july. It gives me lots of fruit. For the runners it depends how many plants you have, i usually let 3 make runners for every 10 plants i have and clip the others forming on the other 7 plants off so it doesnt depleat fruit production and i mark the pots or beds with the year the plants were planted so i can take the 3 year old ones up and replace with the new ones. All the best percy charlie. Ps i have now about 350 strawberry plants.

Just to add, for any other strawberry novices trying this out there, the little pots of new strawberries are taking root now and the vines are sort of dying away by themselves, as the new plants root. Strawberries really know what they're doing!

I'll cut them in a few weeks once I'm sure everything has strong roots.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestion and advice on this!

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Changing the world, one plant at a time.