Well, we’ve gotten probably 15 – 25 strawberries from our 25 strawberry plants this year, and the strawberry season has come to an end!  Looked at from the perspective of just this season, the plants weren’t a very frugal purchase.  However, I planted them with the long term in mind, and hope that these plants will produce for us for years to come!  (And my two littles enjoyed picking them and popping them right into their mouths!)

Strawberry plants send out long spidery looking tentacles that are called runners.  To expand your strawberry patch for free, it’s easy to replant these and they will grow into new plants.  You take the stem part of the runner, and halfway along the runner cover it with soil (if there’s room in your garden bed you can do this near the mother plant, if not, you can put it in a small potting container).  After about a week, the plant will have established itself and then you cut the runner that attaches it to the mother plant.  Voila – a new plant!

Since this is the first year I’ve had these plants, I chose to cut off the runners off most of the plants.  The reason for this is then the plant will use it’s energy to make more berries in the year to come, instead of spreading it’s growing energy more thinly along new plants. Next year when they are better established, I’ll plant all the runners to make new plants; this year I only did it with a few. 

Avivah