strawberry help

[gan heather]

I'm trying to decide what strawberries to plant this year and as it's my first time growing them I'm not really sure what the practical differences are between planting bareroot plants versus runners. Help please!

[FB.]

Christine and Pegasus.
Both are fairly good for organic growing, very vigorous and prolific, will tolerate poorer soils, produce lots of runners for next season and give sweet fruits.
Christine is quite early-ripening. Pegasus is mid-late ripening. The two will cover most of the strawberry season.

I can't see that bare-root or runners would make much difference.
Both Christine and Pegasus will multiply very rapidly - several runners per plant per season.

Florence is one of my least favourites; it tends not to produce runners, but the crowns divide into two eahc season. Florence is also a very slow/weak grower that needs very rich soil to do any good at all.

Honeoye is also one that I dislike; they seem to be extremely prone to dying from just a slight lack of water.

[WrexTheDragon]

I have ALBION and they did very well last year producing a bumper crop, and I have another 12 plants grown from runners ready to plant out.
I was a bit disappointed with my ZENGANA, as the fruit suffered from Botrytis.

I always try and buy runners, as I can see how healthy the plants are. With the bare root plants they have normally been kept refrigerated and don't look much when they arrive. So I never know if it is the plants or me if they fail.

[northepaul]

I have some marsh mellow to plant out, highly recommended to be by just about everyone. Lovely big fruit and very strong plants.

[gan heather]

Thanks so much for the advice - very helpful.

[sunnymay10]

Hi all,

shame you mentioned the Honeoye as not too good, as I've just bought some.
My patch of strawberries never seem to do much beyond june, I have a friend who's strawbs went through until september, but he doesn't know the variety, and i don't know my original ones, they were passed onto me from a friend, I do replace them with the runners on a regular basis, but the fruiting is getting lesss and less, and I love strawbs. I end up having to buy them.

sunymay.

[Alison]

I have some Honeoye (admitedly they came free with some fruit tree orders ) and I've found them very good. Produced some lovely early and sweet fruit last year and so have doubled my number by taking runners last year.

Re bare root / runners, I'm a bit tight so tend to buy bare root if I want a new variety and never had a failure yet so long as you pot them up before planting out but usually take my own runners.