Exactly how that almighty god of gardening, Monty Don, told me to do. Seriously, if you’re not watching Gardener’s World every week, I deeply pity you, for your life is that bit less warm and fuzzy than mine is. :P
Yes, so, I’m sure anyone growing strawberries will notice lots of runners coming off their plants. This is by far the best way to propagate your plants.
Often on strawberry runners one can see the little brown roots trying to bury into the soil, usually between 0-1cm, but sometimes there are no roots, just a stem jetting out from the plant and upon that stem will be a mass of healthy growth with a clear base where you just know it will root. This is a runner… or in posh Wikipedia Latin, a stolon.
How to get more strawberry plants for yourself: (£££!) Take a small pot, dig a hole for it and fill it back up with the soil you dug out so it is buried. Buried under where the runner/stolon is rooting/going to root, that is. Next, pin down your runner with a “Π” (that unicode symbol had better work!) thing. I dunno, if your mum doesn’t hang loads of pictures/mirrors/clematis wires everywhere you may have to improvise… But I have these things in the tools drawer.
…so anyway. Wafflage. Now you have hopefully pinned down your strawberry runners somehow into the pot. Leave them for a bit, maybe all winter (it took me ages to realise that strawberries are perennial and not annual!). Then you will have a healthy new plant, which you can snip off that unnecessary umbillical cord between the mother and your brand new plant, and you should have another little potted strawberry, ready for planting out or keeping in a container.
Fine, a Gardener’s World link you shall have. This episode is available for the next two months. :)
I hope that mass of words made some sense to somebody.
Happy gardening,
And I hope you have to put up with a billion strawberry plants like I probably will! spite xxx
PS. Also a photo of my ridiculously late vine tomato which might actually give a harvest… plus my artemisia – because I am still obsessed with its fethery, smelly wonders.
This entry is about
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Day 116
Strawberry Runners from Supermarket Plants Fragaria x ananassa
Growing
Rooting and shooting. :D |
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For The Love of Bare Feet On Grass
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Comments
seeingreen wrote:
I haven’t got around to doing mine yet either. Did you see Monty’s though – already pots full of roots and being planted out into their bed!
Posted on 05 Sep 11 (over 1 year ago)
Tralamander wrote:
Haha, yes, I don’t think it’s too late in the year though. I have noticed they root remarkably quickly, and I hope this is true for them now things have slowed down in the later months. but there’s no rush, and I’m certain some day we’ll have new plants that are just as good. :)
Posted on 06 Sep 11 (over 1 year ago)
LouiseM wrote:
Monty Don is great – I have a couple of his books. When I lived in the UK, the TV gardener that always made me smile the most was Bob Flowerdew. Crazy hair and crazy name. That said, the arborist I use for my current garden goes by the totally wonderful name of “Mr. Plumtree”. Strange, but true.
Posted on 06 Sep 11 (over 1 year ago)
Tralamander wrote:
I’m looking up Mr Plumtree now… and <3 Flowerdew’s plait! :D
Posted on 06 Sep 11 (over 1 year ago)
Amarylis wrote:
I made up a whole new bed on the allotment I share with Gerry last year! I rooted dozens of plants & cut them off & made up a new bed with them! The old bed was full of old plants that were full of weeds &, worst of all, it had 3 different kinds of Bindweed growing in it!
Here are links to three blogs I wrote last year, on another gardening forum, that also mention my experience with Strawberries last year & this year:
http://www.growsonyou.com/balcony/blog/11736—summer-s-end-not-quite-down-on-the-plot-2nd-part
http://www.growsonyou.com/balcony/blog/10598-mid-summer-night-s-nightmare
http://www.growsonyou.com/balcony/blog/15569-end-of-the-line-for-strawberries
Just a few days ago I was tidying up the new Strawberry bed & I found some ripe fruit! Some of it I ate on the spot & some I brought home. Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos at the time. There are still a few fruits on them still that I’m waiting for to mature! We started harvesting Strawberries from the old bed on the 1st day of Tennis at Wimbledon, this year we finished picking the last Strawberries on the 1st day of Tennis at Wimbledon!
I’m now rooting a few plants in the GH but I haven’t got around to taking any photos. I want to root more yet for my new plot.
Posted on 06 Sep 11 (over 1 year ago)
Tralamander wrote:
Thanks for sharing! Haha, I was just about to go to bed but… oh your blog! It’s a real pleasure to read/look at your blog. Fascinating stuff. …and now I want to give GrowsOnYou a go too… I’m so jealous of your awesome allotment. It’s clear you put so much work in, and seeing all those healthy plants and punnets of harvests is proof. Totally aspirational and inspirational stuff. Thank you so much for sharing. <3
Posted on 06 Sep 11 (over 1 year ago)
hotwired wrote:
@Amarylis… nice Strawberry patch. Strawberries are a lot of work, almost a full-time job. In my current patch, I started out with 75 bareroots in 2009. I now have over 3500 plants by propagating runners. I’m prepping a new patch right now, since next year my current patch’s production will be starting to fade.
@Tralamander… you should join Strawberry Lovers Group.
Posted on 27 Sep 11 (over 1 year ago)
Tralamander wrote:
Thank you, hotwired, I shall, They’re growing on my every day… now I have runners from runners from runners…. :P
Posted on 02 Oct 11 (over 1 year ago)
LillyPilly wrote:
Now that’s just cruel. The link tells me that yet again the BBC doesn’t share with us. Gardener’s World probably wouldn’t be terribly relevant, but still.. Our ABC just started his Lost Gardens series to replace Gardening Australia over summer. They’ve only aired one episode so far, but that one was far and away the most interesting look at historical gardens I’ve yet seen on TV. Mind, I don’t watch that much TV so there may well be others that are above the usual, oohing and aahing drivel.
Pot in the ground pin downs work for so many plants. Or pot above ground, if you remember to water them ;-(, unlike me. Have you tried air layering yet? Every time I do that I’m amazed that it works. The hardest part is the waiting!
Posted on 21 Nov 11 (over 1 year ago)
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