How to plant strawberry runners?

It's my first year growing strawberries and I would like to plant the runners my plants have produced. In the instructional videos etc that I have watched, the runners already have roots, apart from leaves. However, mine only have leaves on them, so would they survive if I planted them now or should I wait till they produce small roots?

 

You need to peg them into a pot of compost, bit of wire bent into a U, where each leafy bit is, then they will grow roots, when you see actively growing cut each one separate.

 

Thanks Pam, that's really helpful.

 

This might help you;

 

Thank you all, I 've just planted them!

 

Best to only allow two runners from each plant - chop the rest off. Rooting lots of runners, from a single plant, robs some energy from next year.

 

I have planted my runners and they have grown into small strawberry plants. However, the "runner" bit keeps growing. Do I cut that off?

 

As @Kristen says limit to 2 runners per plant, just cut the end off past your rooted cutting.

 

Sorry for jumping on, but My strawberry plants have sent out runners too, should i let them grow on now as normal once pegged in? any other care or treatment to ensure they grow well next year?

 

I usually choose a nice one and stuff it full of nitrogen. Place my seed pots full of compost around it to catch the runners and then peg them in with garden ties. They will onpy root when the environment is right, ie when they hit the soil. Once rooted and vigorous I clip the runner next to the new plant, so the mother plant can suck it back in when it dies off.

 

I personally let the strawberry plants produce as many new baby plants as they want to and I let mine root in deepish trays of compost that I put down next to the parent plant and then let them root.When they have fully rooted I cut the umbilical runner bit close to the new baby plant with a small pair of scissors or a gardening knife.

Once the main plants are growing in the beds in the spring I apply a generous amount of chicken pellets round each plant and either water them in or let the rain do the same thing.This year we had a fantastic crop and none of the parent plants suffered and us and the blackbirds really enjoyed the flavour this year which I put down to the plentiful of sunshine we had just at the right time...

 

No personal experience, but I have read that allowing plants to produce more than 2 babies saps strength from the parent, presumably the implication being it reduces next year's harvest (although it you want enough plants to plant a new area I would have thought the harvest from "masses of plants" beats retaining vigour in the parent!

I have all the plants I need, so I only need enough for 1/3 replacement, so that is only one runner from every other parent ...

 

I do what kandy does, and just root all the runners ... got lots of strawberry plants this year and had a bumper crop of berries

 

Amazing really, what a bag of chicken moo poo can do for the palette.