At the end of the summer the strawberry plant will start to send out "runners". These are like little mini plants on the end of a long shoot. You want to cut these runners off until your strawberry has finished fruiting so the plants sends all it's energy into making fruit for you first! Once fruiting is all over, let the runners grow - and they will grow like crazy.
Over a month it will grow roots. You should be able to give it a little tug and if it feels firm you know it is ready. At this point they can be snipped off and voila you have a new strawberry plant. Yay!
I like to put all the pots on a tray so they are easily moved, watered etc until ready for planting out next Spring. Of course if you have space in your garden, you can use the same procedure, but just plant them straight in the soil next to the mother plant instead of in a pot.
Three strawberry plants were gifted to me from a friend a few years ago. He is in is eighties and was once a professional strawberry man and those three plants grew some of the best strawberries ever. Now those three plants have multiplied enough that we can pick a bowl of free strawberries every few days.
Love that.
xx
oooo very clever strawberry man and apprentice! thanks for sharing :) when we one day get round to it, this will be good to know! x
ReplyDeleteOur six strawberry plants have now multiplied to an entire garden bed full of strawberries LOVE
ReplyDeleteI need to do this as my plants no longer produce fruit so best I start potting the runners .
ReplyDeleteinteresting and seems so simple! My dad grows strawbs though and he reckons that after about three seasons the strawbs go wild and not very tasty. Have you found that?
ReplyDeleteI love the way strawberries multiply like this. Before we moved house I discretely dug up some runners from our strawberries, so that now I have several in pots waiting to be planted in the new garden. The strawberries rarely make it inside in our house though - they're usually consumed by small mouths before making it a step away from the plant!
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