Strawberries have finished.

This wet weather has put an end to the last couple of strawberries. So now what?

I have four containers with between two and four plants in each. Two of the containers (varieties), did little to nothing in the fruit growing arena.

How do I progress? Pruning, straw, runners, where do I keep them during winter, watering, feeding etc etc.

Thank you in advance.

 

Have you got 'runners' on your strawberries with little leaves on? if so pot the leaf parts of the runners into 3" pots and pin down the stem,a hair grip will do...In a 2 or 3 weeks they'll have rooted and you can detach them from the mother plant and you'll have more strawberry plants
I'd keep them watered and then just leave them in a the strawberry bed .Mine are grown in guttering but I'll pot them up and pop them behind my GH over winter...they'll shrivel up and look like they're done for but come the spring you can trim off the dodgy leaves and the new growth will push through...I find you only get 3 maybe 4 years tops from old plants then it's time to replace

 

Thanks Lolimac. So i don't prune now. Do I remove the straw mulch? Do I water throughout winter? How many runners should I run on? There has been stacks. Many I have cut off whilst fruit was still growing.

 

Ok. I have pinned down another four runners. Do I keep pinning them all down or just cut back the ones I don't want.

Also can anyone answer the question in my previous post re watering, mulch, pruning.

Can at least now shift them out of the fruit cage.

 

This is a pic of a runner I started a few weeks back. Is it ok? Will this survive the winter outside?

The little pot is a module pot to give you an idea of size.

Thanks

 

I pot on all the runners, leave the straw on, don't water over winter and just prune the obviously dead leaves in spring when they start to come back to life. I've had some plants for about 5 years and this year was the best ever crop from them. I just leave them to their own devices over winter and they always seem to spring into life the next year

 

Does this apply to strawberry plants in containers though?

Thanks though. Will go out tomorrow and pin down more runners.

 

I put old black plastic plant trays (from homebase ) next to the strawberry containers and let the runners grow across them. Some root some dont no worries as i got 84 new plants this way last year.

 

84 - WOW!

 

yep all mine are in containers

 

Wonderful. Will move them out if the fruit cage and put something else in that needs protection. Already got toms and blueberries, but room for about 3 - 4 good sized containers.