What if you could multiply your strawberry crop and have a bigger harvest? Yes, you can! Sweet juicy strawberries, for free, for life, and grown in your own garden easily.
If you know a few tricks of the gardening trade, this could help you increase your strawberry harvest. So, in this article we're going to look at three ways to grow more strawberries; strawberry how to plant from seeds, how to grow strawberries by division, and by the use of runners.
Without further ado, let's jump right in.
1. FROM SEED
The first way to grow strawberries is from seeds. The seeds of strawberry form outside the fruit. It is a really fun project to save strawberry seeds and then grow them yourself, but it does take a little bit of time, and because most strawberries are modern hybrids, there's a very high chance that the seedlings you get won't be anything like the parent plant.
So, if you do want to grow from seeds, buy purpose-sold seed packets instead. If you haven't got any strawberries and you want to grow quite a lot on the cheap, then sowing seeds could be the way to go.
Buying a named variety of seeds means they will come true to type. To sow them, place them on the surface of a pre-wetted potting mix and it's as simple as that.
Grow your young strawberries in a bright position but out of direct sunlight and then acclimatize them gradually to the outdoors before planting them out about 30 centimeters or one foot apart. You can actually go a bit further if they're in a container.
2. BY DIVISION
Strawberries can also be grown by division, the crown of the plant naturally produces more and more sections to it and you can just carefully tease them apart into separate divisions and then pot them up into potting mix to grow on before replanting them.
However, am not a big fan of division because you've got to dig up the plant and then tease them apart, and often, one or more of the divisions get damaged that way.
It just makes little sense too to dig up plants when you can just as easily grow them from their runners. So, let's move swiftly on to our third best and easiest way to grow strawberries from runners.
3. GROW FROM RUNNERS
If you have ever grown strawberries you'll probably be familiar with the long wiry stems that race out from the center of the plant. These are what the runners are and it's the most efficient way the strawberry reproduces itself.
Botanically speaking, these runners are called Stolons and they're creeping horizontal stems that root at intervals along their length where you get little clusters of leaves.
You can use this naturally occurring habit to grow more strawberry plants, either to replace existing ones or to expand your strawberries to a new patch in the garden.
Growing strawberries from runners is pretty much bulletproof and the great thing is you will get identical plants because they're coming off the parent plant, so their genetics are exactly the same, so you know you are going to get what you're after.
Only take runners from healthy plants because you don't want to pass on any diseases or viruses to the offspring and only take runners from plants that are at least one year old because younger plants should really be concentrating on beefing themselves out, so you don't want to cut away any runners from those young plants. Root your runners into pots with potting mix then cut them free from the parent plant to transplant elsewhere in the garden.
I normally use pots, so the first thing you want to do is to fill them with potting mix, firm it down and give them a little good water once they're filled just to pre-wet them. Now that your pot is ready, now you need to use little pins to secure the runner down onto the potting mix so they make really good contact. You've got a few options, use thick gauge wire or you could use an old coat hanger, which should work really well. Just cut off sections and then bend them into the shape of a pin.
Pin down your runners, like I said before the runners are those little clusters of leaves on the wiry stem. Pin them down into your pots of pre-prepared potting mix.
Sometimes, you might actually see some roots already growing which is great, it means it's really raring to grow.
To pin it down, just take your pot of potting mix, and push it down so the leaves are facing upwards then use your pin to really hold it down.
You want a really good contact with the potting mix. Don't be afraid to push it down so it's properly pinned down. You got the leaves facing up and the roots going down, that would make it grow very nicely.
If you've got lots of runners, you sometimes get secondary clusters of leaves also called a 'node' coming on from the end. You can also pin that down so you're getting two little plantlets off one runner.
Runners are nice and flexible, so if you're just expanding your strawberry patch further in the same area, just flex the runners to where you want it, hold it in the ground and then just pin it down directly into the soil and it will root there.
Once it has rooted, you can separate it from the mother plant and you've got an entirely new strawberry plant.
In general, if you don't want to create new plants from runners then it's always best to remove them, no matter the age of the plant so you keep all the plant energy within itself to give it the oomph behind it to create more flowers and of course delicious berries.
The way to think of these runners connecting to the nodes of clusters of leaves is a bit like an umbilical cord. It's getting all the energy from the mother plant to feed the baby. So, you want to keep this on until the runners have definitely rooted. This usually takes between two and three weeks but I love to leave it another week or two on from that so say up to a month before you make that cut from the mother plant. If it's dry, help your runners along by giving them water from time to time to encourage those roots to form.
There are a couple of ways I like to tell whether the runners have definitely rooted. I look for strong fresh growth and if the pot is turned over, you could see roots just poking out of the drainage holes. If you take it out of the pot, you could see a gigantic root system rooted beautifully.
When it's like that, you know there are mature enough to be detached from the parent plant.
So make the first cut right up against the plant and then just cut the rest of the runners off right down to the mother plant.
Once your strawberries are ready to plant, you want to choose a sunny, well-drained fertile position to plant them into.
Keep your plants well watered and then start feeding them once they begin to flower usually around next spring.
If it's towards the end of the growing season then maybe put them somewhere sheltered like a cold frame or greenhouse, still in their pots and overwinter them and then plant them in the spring once it has warmed up.
Strawberry plants do tend to run out of steam after three or four years and the fruit production really drops off, so growing them from runners is a fantastic way to keep those plants coming and coming year after year, season after season.
Growing strawberries this way couldn't be easier and you'll get your strawberries to keep on going far into the future. Juicy strawberries for free, for life.
Now, tell me, what is your favorite variety? Let me know in the comment section below.
Hope this article was helpful, if it was please share it so more people get to learn these 3 easy steps to grow more strawberries.
Also, read - 6 Crops To Grow At Home To Save You From Starving
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