Strawberry Runners - The Definitive Guide

every spring and summer strawberries are an unstoppable force in our gardens both the berries as well as the plants themselves as a low crawling woodland plant strawberries have three ways to propagate and reproduce themselves seeds which are oddly located on the outside of the fruit crown multiplication which can get a bit tricky and then by these guys the strawberry runner which is by far the most effective way often misunderstood if not overlooked completely strawberry runners are stem-like projections that shoot out from the mother plant of both june bearing and ever-bearing varieties ending in a brand new daughter plant and this little guy here is a perfect clone of the main strawberry mother plant as vegetative miracles strawberry runners allow the main plants to grow spread and cover the nearby area with astonishing speed as strawberry growers whether we're growing in containers or a large patch sooner or later we're gonna have to deal with them the relationship a gardener has with strawberry runners is wide and varied ranging from minor annoyance like a light weeding to diligent collection and management to maximize the patch i know many of you are wondering what's the big deal can't we just leave the runners b and put our energies elsewhere well the answer is probably not and today i'll explain why as well i've got three easy techniques to double or even triple your strawberry population using these very runners my goal today is to get you to reach that strawberry utopia you've always dreamed of so let's get going [Music] as common and abundant as they are there's often still confusion surrounding what exactly a strawberry runner is strawberry runners known botanically as stolens are horizontal above ground stems modified in such a way that they end in one or more clones known as daughter plants crops that do this are known as stoloniferous ones and strawberries are the best at it the stolens may contain one two three or more clones on them and they're the main way a strawberry plant reproduces itself as a low crawling woodland plant with fairly insignificant flowers seed reproduction is an uphill battle for strawberries crown divisions are great for farmers but not so great for a plant to accomplish itself so by adopting these amazing appendages strawberry plants have evolved to grow and spread vegetatively when the daughter plant touches the ground especially moist soil it's automatically triggered to start producing adventitious roots right at the base on almost every runner that's over a week or so old you'll start to see the little root nodules forming it's pretty amazing as adventitious roots do they grow fast and once the daughter plant is fully rooted it's completely independent of the main plant and able to grow on its own and all of this happens upwards of three or more feet away from the main plant not to mention like we saw before even the runners themselves can have runners so you start to see why this is such an effective strategy at reproduction but in life there's no such thing as a free lunch and this applies to strawberry runners as well which brings us to why when we start seeing strawberry runners we must take action as awesome as strawberry runners are they can't stay as soon as they start to appear in your patch they should be removed and we do this for two reasons first those runners are a massive drain on the main plant producing epic berry harvest is a lot of work it takes a lot of energy and if you have one or in this case 20 satellite appendages sapping energy from the main plant well that's less energy going to the berries trust me i've seen it a million times they directly affect your harvest potential and second like we said strawberry runners are a highly effective way for the plants to reproduce but in the captivity of our backyard gardens it becomes a little too effective letting the runners do their thing in an already perfectly spaced better pot can quickly become problematic soon you'll be inundated with too much of a concentration of strawberry plants essentially the patch is going to become overgrown and it's going to start to compete with itself and as you can guess that also is going to affect the harvests unless you're deliberately expanding your strawberry patch in place remove the runners as soon as you see them it's not all bad though there's very few crops out there where you can buy a little plant and it'll supply you with endless clones of itself totally expanding your operation and that's why strawberry gardeners love the runners so much for no extra cost to us we can buy one or two plants and in a single year expand to more plants than we know what to do with really there's no other crop that does this especially one with a highly lucrative harvest like strawberries not even including the berries themselves this gives strawberry plants a return on investment like no other however even if we want and are gonna use all these runners not much changes we pretty much need to deal with them as soon as we see them and there's three ways to do this each with their own strengths each with their own advantages the first method is quite simple and it's the one we use when we want to expand and fill out an existing patch essentially we do nothing sort of we let the runners do their thing yes but with a little nudge and a little direction here or there it's up to us where they set up shop we get to decide where they send out routes and establish themselves the stolens are quite bendy so we can move them around to bare spots in the patch as we see fit like we mentioned before as soon as the runners hit moist soil root nodules begin to form at the base of the daughter plant move some mulch aside and in a very short period of time often as quick as a week or so the plant is rooted and ready to live on its own at this point the plant is well on its way to becoming another mother plant itself and it's gonna begin producing berries next season as soon as that daughter plant is properly rooted you can nip off that stolen it's a good idea too as it's gonna continue to be a drain on the mother plant it's time for it to go searching for its own resources for method number two we get a little more sophisticated but not a lot instead of letting them root wherever they want or even nudging them towards a preferred spot we place the runners above little strategically placed pots full of a good potting mix this method works great in flat large areas like this two by eight raised bed but not as good in confined spaces like this pot here in a raised bed or amongst a large patch placement is easy keeping them in place however is not the runners sometimes have a mind of their own so i like to use a bent paper clip to pin them down and hold them in place just until they root there's nothing worse than a rudder rooting part way then falling out of the pot and drying out i've seen it too many times to count the process doesn't take long though usually under two weeks especially if you can keep that soil moist once rooted just like with the other method you can go ahead and snip off the runner now you have a free strawberry starter plant that can be used to start a new patch or bed anywhere you want brilliant lastly we have the third method and the one that i use and that's to raise up the daughter plants cut off from the mother plant now not only does it save us time and space but it also cuts that energy sapping lifeline as soon as possible by cutting off that lifeline earlier we saved the mother plants a ton of energy not only that the daughter clones get going that much faster this method can be a little tricky because if you cut these runners too early they simply won't root and they'll die the secret is waiting until the daughter plants have at least four root nodules forming at the base don't do it on a hot day and get them into moist soil or water right away and it makes sense because once you cut that stolen that's it the small daughter plant is receiving no water no nutrients from the mother plant so on hot dry days they can perish quite quickly now once you're sure they're ready and you've cut the runner off we can do one of two things we can plant them in soil or we can put them in water let's do both for planting straight away in soil grab a bag of your favorite quality organic potting mix and pre-fill your little pots right to the top i use the four inch square ones as they seem to be a really good size also let's go ahead and pre-soak those filled pots from below to ensure that they're holding their maximum capacity of water this is really gonna help the new roots form after a couple hours when all the water is absorbed make a hole in the center but not too deep strawberries unlike most plants cannot be buried if they are they're gonna rot and that's where this method gets a little tricky because with no roots to hold them in place and not being able to plant them deep so you have no support how the heck do we plant these guys up the secret is in that stolen stem you see it's quite thick and pretty strong and we can use that to our advantage what you want to do is leave an inch of it on on either side of the daughter plant and use it as an anchor to prop up the plant it works like a charm every time it keeps the base at the little daughter plant just below the soil surface but the rest of the plant safely above ground good stuff just like before within about two weeks or so they're going to be fully rooted and well on their way i should note however that when i'm first potting up the strawberry runners i leave them in a sheltered area somewhere like my greenhouse wind and direct sun can wreck havoc on the young plants and i want to give them the best chance now we mentioned that there was two ways to plot up these runners we can first plant them in soil or we can put them in water first this method is pretty much the same with just an extra step of first rooting them in water i prefer doing it this way and i feel like it has two distinct advantages one it makes them much easier to pot up and more likely to live if they already have an active root system and two not all runners make it not all of them get to the point of sending out roots so this is a way to allow us to know for sure that the planting is going to be a success soil space and time cost money i prefer not to waste those it goes pretty quick and it doesn't add much time the roots form within a week and although the planting window is quite large you don't want to leave it too long roots of all plants can get very used to water and eventually transplant chalk is going to be too great when you're moving them to soil so once those roots reach about an inch long it's time to plant them up and just like we did before planting is much the same leave a little bit of that stolen on to anchor it and plant them high up you want the roots buried but the rest of the plant above ground indirect light and moderate temperatures for a couple of weeks and your new strawberry plants will be ready for the world it's an amazing journey to go from a young runner to a daughter clone to a fully independent individual plant we covered it all and it was a lot of ground for sure let's recap the finer points to help it sink in strawberry runners are vegetative offshoots from the main strawberry mother plant along the long stem of this runner there may be one two or even many clones of the main plant known as daughter plants these daughter plants give strawberries the means to reproduce themselves and colonize the surrounding area with great effect but like anything it comes with a cost the runners are a big time drain on the mother plant and if left to grow they will most certainly affect that season's harvest so we cut them off as they appear to conserve as much energy as possible for berry production you want to cut those runners off near the base of the mother plant as soon as you see them being gardeners however we waste not one knot the little daughter plants are super easy to root and grow and they're the primary method for expanding our patches as well as constantly having new stock to replace the old beds they can be rooted in three ways with relative ease in place if there's room in little pots strategically placed or often away from the main plant in water or soil either way strawberries are the one crop where one simple purchase can result in a mountain of harvest [Music] runners are amazing little offshoots that lets us know our plants are healthy as a low maintenance crop it's the one thing we have to deal with when we're growing strawberries and to me it feels like a small amount of effort for the returns we get hey best of luck with your strawberries and happy growing guys hey thanks so much for watching guys i appreciate the support more than you know and if you're getting value from these videos please like and share them to spread the word and help your fellow gardener to grow better [Music]

Channel: The Ripe Tomato Farms

Views: 167,038

Keywords: growing strawberries, how to grow strawberries, strawberry runners, the ripe tomato farms, garden quickie, strawberries, strawberry stolons, stolons, strawberry plant care, strawberry plants, strawberry plant, growing strawberries in containers, propagating strawberries, how to grow strawberries from runners, strawberry, growing strawberries from runners, strawberry runners first year, strawberry runners transplant, strawberry runners when to cut, how to strawberry runners

Id: TewWAJz_KkA

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 07 2022