Strawberry runners

[Bramble Lover]

Ok its my first year with my first strawberry bed.
Not had many strawberrys yet but plants look healthy and all are producing lots of runners. So what do I do with them?

I know you can get new plants off them but how exactly do i go about it? Do i just get the best of the runners to make a new plant? What do I do with the rest of the runners? How long do I leave it before I snip the umbilical from the mother to the baby ?

I need exact instructions lol

[JennieAtkinson]

I was told to cut the runners off my strawberry plants in the first year of growth to allow all the growth to go to the strawberry plants themselves. I took runners from the second year and planted up a new bed, so I have two beds running behind each other. The third year of growth is supposed to be the most productive and I am finding that this year, with masses of flowers and fruits. Apparently I should then destroy this bed and use the next bed for my fruits, so it is continually restoring itself. Does that make sense?

I must admit given the superb year of fruiting this year, it will be difficult to destroy the beds to replant elsewhere.

Can others confirm that this is actually correct?

[Flummery]

I would go with Jennie's advice. Take them off this year and the plant will be stronger for it next season. Next year pot up some and cut off some. Same the following year. You can collect them in pots or put them in another bed. After 3 or 4 years your original plants will deteriorate - smaller and fewer fruits - so you can replace them. Ideally you'd use another bed but for reasons of space I've kept mine in the same ground. I feed them and they seem ok. After 6 years I'm thinking of ringing the changes!

[Bramble Lover]

Some of these plants are in their second year so I guess I should take a few runners and cut off the rest.

Do I need to keep it attached to the mother plant while it takes root?

[rustylady]

I'm starting to reorganise my strawberry bed. It's been chaos this year and the slugs, snails and woodlice have had a fieldday. I'm digging up the plants next to the wall (this is where the slugs and snails lurk). I'm cutting off all the runners this year, as I really don't need any more plants. I'm also tidying the plants, removing the dead brown leaves and fruit trusses. Plan next year is to keep the bed the same width, but peg down runners for one or maybe two rows at the front of the bed, and dig up plants one or two rows at the back of the bed. Sounds complicated, but this way the strawberry bed should gradually travel across the lottie. Haven't quite worked out what I do when I get to the end, though.

[Flummery]

You can put them straight into pots BL, but leave the plant attached to the parent to let the little one make roots. By the end of the season it should be well rooted and you can cut the cord, so to speak.

[veg4681]

Reading this thread has been useful indeed. I didn't even know what runners were and I can confirm I've had them on my strawberry plants with roots as well. I was pretty clueless, thinking do I cut off and pot them up or leave them alone. Okay it does sound like growing strawberry is a long term project with fruit crops improving after 1st year. Maybe best not to write off my strawberry plants just yet.

[Bramble Lover]

We have a strawberry bed with about 14 plants in but have only had about a handful of strawberrys so far. Is this normal? They DID taste really good though!!

Was expecting to be over run with them but it looks like we may get more off the plants at home that are in a pot.

[Rubyred]

My strawberries have just finished and they were yum!

I've got 10 runners rooted so far (3 plants second year now) mine are in pots though. So I should have loads next year