Strawberries underneath the pear and apple treesI picked the last of my strawberries. I only grow June bearers as keeping the squirrels out of the patch is so annoying I like to keep the picking season short. I do have alpines that are closer to the house, though the squirrels tend to leave those alone. Those also rarely make it into the house.
Every year I have to renew some of the beds. This spring I bought some and planted them. But it would be nice to renew them with runners of the established plants. That way I could plant them now and they would be big enough to pick next year. Nice in theory at any rate.
I ripped out a stretch of the plants. The bigger ones halfway up are the ones planted in the spring. The lower ones are planted with partly rooted runners. I'm not sure they are rooted enough to survive, but I'm sure I'll find out in a week if they live or die. Probably some of both. If I'm lucky enough the ones that have survived will start sending out their own runners to fill in the gaps. If not I might buy more plants next year. Or try again.
I did get around to trimming off most of the runners from all but one section of the plants. I don't know if I'll keep up with it. It is a never ending chore. It does help them from getting too crowded though. I grow Earliglow which sets a lot of runners. Usually by the end of July I've gotten so sick of the chore that I quit. I'll cut off the easy ones hanging down, and the ones trying to over take the trees planted in the back, but nothing more.
I've started new plants by pinning runners in pots and allowing them to grow a pretty good root system, then cut them from the mother plants and put them where I want them, it seems to work well. Generally though, I'm treating my strawberries as annuals. The long growing season here allows them to grow and bear fruit in one year, but the mild winters don't make them go dormant so diseases usually run rampant through the patch. It's easier to start new plants in a new location than to fight the diseases, and it works better with my bed rotations as well since I don't have a dedicated spot for them. Thankfully I don't have to deal with squirrels as well!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about the runners - I assumed that once I got rid of most of them I would only have to do a bit of clean up once in a while, but they do go crazy (which in turn drives me crazy!)
ReplyDeleteI ripped out a large strawberry patch last fall and moved the best 10 or so to a new space. But I've had hardly any berries so not sure if I did it well - I moved them in the fall simply because that's when I did the cleanup. I guess I'll leave them for another year and see if they make a comeback but I might have to purchase some new ones next spring.
ReplyDeleteKeeping up with the production of runners on strawberries is a full time job.
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