A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 strawberry runners

[LIST] I have never grown strawberries, so I built a raised bed, 3'x26'x10" deep, well mulched, great draining, sun all day and watered as needed. Planted 25 June bearers, 25 ever bearers and they took off great. Produced some berries (taste was perfect) for two weeks, stopped and have been running crazy with runners. They are everywhere !!! No blooms, NO berries, what did I do wrong and what to do now?
I am suppose to be great at producing fruit, I'm a preacher.

GW

This is my first year growing. I am not really sure about strawberries since how mine have not grown this year.

But someone here on the forum told me to cut the runners. They also said you can make another plant with the runners. Someone with more experince will be along any minute to help you with it.
Sorry if I was not of any help.

Good one, Pastor !

If they were planted this year they may not do much.

I planted my first bed last year and it didn't produce hardly anything. But this year it did REAL good.

I started with 10 June bearers and by the end of May it was all over.

Your plants are still establishing themselves. The June bearers won't bloom again until next spring, but you probably will get more blooms on your everbearers later in the summer.

Here is some info on planting and culture of strawberries from the nursery where I got my strawberry plants this spring.

Strawberry planting and culture

They say you should thin some of the runners out on the June bearers and all the runners the first year on the everbearers

I've raised everbearing strawberries for more years than I care to count, & have had great crops from first year plants. (I've even gotten berries from runner plants that came on very early in the season & were mature enough to set down roots right away... although one shouldn't hope for that to happen very often!)

Since good production only lasts a few years from a strawberry plant, I always let several of mine keep their runners so I can have new plants coming every year. If I get a runner that I notice is slow to produce a new plant, I pull the runner off & hope the plant will use its energy to flower, instead of putting out another runner. (UNLESS it's a 3 year old! While a 3 or 4 year old plant might still make berries, they're usually inferior in size & flavor, so it's best to let them keep their runners so they can be replaced with new plants.)

You didn't do anything "wrong", so DON'T give up! Strawberry plants only do two things; they make berries & they make babies! Beings that it makes no difference to them what WE want them to do, they're perfectly happy being "fruitful & multiplying"... in no particular order! If you're in an area where you enjoy a late harvest (through September), I'd say to snip the runners off now & hope that your plants will decide to use their energy to produce berries, instead. (Allow them to throw runners out, later in the season.) If you're in a zone where the weather starts cooling way down in August, I think you may as well cut your losses & leave those runners alone... (The 'up' side being that you can try again next year with even more plants!)

Instead of eliminating ALL the runners, as Terry mentioned, you might just want to take a close look at the plants on those runners & decide which ones you want to allow to continue, & plan on having them in next year's strawberry bed. (Of your 25 everbearing plants, perhaps if you let 1/3 of them keep their runners this year, it would give you a nice start for a strawberry bed that'll keep you in young plants for as long as you want to continue to raise them.) Meanwhile, snip the runners off the other plants, so they can start "producing" over again... (when making babies doesn't work, they often decide to make berries instead.)

Either way, keep an eye on them next year & pull runners off early, so they'll use their energy to flower-up & give you berries. First year plants may (or may not) meet expectations, but look out the second year... as Pat discovered, they'll take off on you & be terrific!

You might want to take a look at what The Garden Helper says about How to Grow Sweet, Delicious Strawberries .

By the way, GW, welcome to the forum! You'll find that we're a bunch of friendly people who are eager to help each other with gardening problems, & most of us are looking for help with ours, too! Perhaps you have some ideas & gardening experiences that you'd care to share with us. (You mentioned that you built a raised bed for your strawberries... we'd love to hear about how you made yours, & what else you have growing in your garden!)
We look forward to getting to know you better!

Sounds pretty normal for a first year strawberry patch to me.

Have faith!

I planted a bunch of the ubiquitous Sequoias this year. They fruited nicely right away and have sent out a bunch of runners which are rooted/rooting and growing well. I'm just letting them go to see what happens. They are in a small bed that I feel ok experimenting with, and enjoy the flowers and foliage as an ornamental ground cover as well.

I think sometimes (we) gardeners do more harm than good by killing our plants with kindness (too much water, fertilizer, etc). What's the worst that can happen if I just let them go wild?

Clint, I think the worst thing that can happen if you let strawberries go wild is that you won't have enough jars to put all that jam in!

Happy gardening!

Thanks for the great advice Patty! I've noticed that strawberries do love mulch, and lots of it.

I have 4 bags of Pine Needles to mulch mine with.

Thank you all so very much. I do see that I have much to learn about berries, but I see that the out come is very sweet !! And Patty S, we are raising almost everything now in raised beds for convenience (sqash, cukes, mators, onion, garlic, cabbage, lettuce, beets, radish,okra). We teach, preach and sing and a large garden requires more time than we can give. The beds start producing earlier and the maintenance is low, just watch the water. Thank you all again so much and have a blessed day.
GW

Wow! It sounds like you have a FULL garden, GW! I hope it'll help.

Keep doing what you're doing, GW, & I wish you God's richest blessings! I hope to see you again soon... & often!