Wednesday 18 November 2015

Propagating Strawberries

I mentioned a few days ago that I was planning to pot-up some Strawberry offshoots, before they got completely covered in fallen Maple leaves...


Well, on Sunday I finally got round to doing this task. Let me show you the Strawberry plants before they got covered in leaves:. You can see here how the runners were spreading out in all directions and looking for a home in the shingle.


As some of you know, I grow my Strawberries in black plastic crates (you can just about make them out in the photos above). I have 4 of them, each containing 4 plants. My plan is to keep my stock vigorous by replacing one box every year with new plants grown from the offshoots. Here's Box No.1 lined up for the treatment:


A closer look at the runners reveals some nice strong plantlets, some of them with well-developed root systems already (I had to prise them out of the shingle with a trowel).


So, snip the plantlet off the runner, and stick it into a small pot full of moist compost. It's as simple as that!


Following my usual policy, I potted-up six plants even though I only need four. This allows for some casualties.


The little plants are now safely ensconced in one of the mini-greenhouses, where they will spend the Winter prior to being planted up in their crate (duly filled with fresh compost) in the Spring.

Job done!

4 comments:

  1. That's the great thing about strawberry plants, they're so easy to propagate.

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  2. I'll be rejuvenating my strawberry bed within the next couple of years - it's been going for 2 years now and I think they start to decline after 3. Ideally, I would love to have 2 full beds - one with an everbearing variety & one June bearer.

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  3. I think the fact that you can propagate them so easily makes strawberries great value for the garden. Sorry if you've mentioned this before, but which variety have you got?

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    Replies
    1. Hi Matt, my varieties are: Cambridge Favourite, Honeyoe, Eros and Florence.

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