the best strawberry I have tasted so far.

[tomsloc]

First lot of gariguette - fantastic flavour - beats my hapil and cambridge favourite - have yet to harvest marshmello and maras de bois.

[Two_Sheds]

make sure you plant up some runners then ... because everyone will want some

[Farmer_Gyles]

i had my first home grown strawberry the other day - dont care what variety is was or that it wasn't as big or as sweet as supermarket ones, it was lovely!

[tomsloc]

the variety makes a lot of difference ,thats why supermarket ones aren`t very good.

[Stacey Steve]

The Malling Opal that I have are a wonderful taste, perhaps not the best shaped fruits but large juicy and a deep red colour inside.

Only had a few plants last year so they all got eaten as fast as they were picked but I have about 30 this year so really looking forward to jam made from them.

[Crundy]

the variety makes a lot of difference ,thats why supermarket ones aren`t very good.

Well, that and the fact that you can pick them when they're ripe, rather than picking them green, shipping them across the other side of the world and then spraying them with ethane to make them look ripe.

[Storm]

I have got some wild strawberries on our plot that taste wonderful. They don't grow much bigger than a grape but are packed with flavour that is quite different from cultivated ones. They fruit all summer and need no attention - except picking

Our cultivated strawberries have been rampantly successful with delicious fruit that so far has never made it to the allotment gates, let alone to home

[GrapeGrower]

A bit of topic...but how do you take cuttings from strawberry plants? My plants have been growing what I assume are runners - do I just snip these off and stick them in a pot with compost?

[TonyF]

Easiest ways are the traditional ways. Either pin down the runners and let them root, then gently pull them up and replant them or fill pots with potting compost and pin (bit of wire bent unto a long inverted U) the runners into the pot, let them grow on and then plant them out.

[Storm]

A bit of topic...but how do you take cuttings from strawberry plants? My plants have been growing what I assume are runners - do I just snip these off and stick them in a pot with compost?

Stawberry plants don't fruit well forever so it's a good idea to take runners and cultivate them as TonyF describes and createa bed of "baby" plants that will be next year's fruiters.

We have three beds on the go - the mature fruiters, the year-old plants (from last year's runners) and the babies (from this year's runners).

That way, we always have a mature fruiting bed, plus a bed to replace it next year.

[jackie j]

I have no idea what variety my strawberries are but they are gorgeous and big.

[coreopsis]

What's the story with wild/alpine strawbs?Last year I had one plant about 2'' tall growing under a hedge.I put it into strawberry bed and at the end of the summer the plant was about foot high.This spring I had a look at it and it turned out that there were 7 plants growing from 1 long root.I always thought that strawberries regardless to the variety were reproducing by sending the runners.I'm slightly confused now.

[ckfe]

my strawberry plants are in a planted so can't pin the runners down to root.. when you say put them in a compost pot do you mean cut them off the strawberry plant and put them in the pot?

[SMS6]

Aren't you also supposed to cut the runners off for the first year and not let the plant have them? I always thought you were supposed to take runners from year 2 plants to keep a rotation going?

[TonyF]

my strawberry plants are in a planted so can't pin the runners down to root.. when you say put them in a compost pot do you mean cut them off the strawberry plant and put them in the pot?

Not unless they've already rooted but I'd still use the pot method. Put the pots vaguely round the mother plant and pin the still attached runners in the pots.

As for the first year runners, I couldn't even begin to know which of mine are first, second or third year plants. I now mainly grow alpines and they come, fruit for a couple of years and then die off, they really do look after themselves.

The only problem we have with this method is that we really cannot pick and eat them fast enough, alpine strawberry plants will look after themselves and unless you have pristine rows of plants and want to grow enormous numbers of them, leave them to their own devices.