Ligaya Gardener's occasional how to gardening post - easily propagating Strawberries

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Hi Hive Gardeners and DIY folks! In between my regular series of posts on various aspects of growing, foraging and makin stuff around home, I'll be popping in sometimes with seasonal, timely tips and 'how to's'. Here's one I whipped up today, it's about getting free Strawberry plants without committing criminal offences.

The Strawberries in our hanging pots have become quite rampant, with runners hanging down to the ground. I guess that means that it’s time to propagate some new plants. I’ll share with you here the easiest way that I know to propagate them with a good success rate.



What to look for

Strawberry plants grow as ground hugging stems called runners. At points along those stems, a node forms and this is where the leaves come out. If a node is touching the soil, roots will form and a new plant will grow. The stems in between the nodes are called, technically, ‘internodes’. We simply need to mimic this reproductive pattern and provide ideal conditions for the new plantlet (I prefer to call them ‘Strawberrylings’ – it sounds so much cuter)!



A bunch of runners, ready for propagating new Strawberry plants from.


How to do it

I developed this little trick from ovserving our Pumpkins. When you harvest a Pumpkin, you, traditionally, cut a length of stem that stays on the Pumpkin. This provides moisture to the Pumpkin itself while it ripens completely inside its shell.

With Strawberry runners, I do the same thing. There is a length of stem between the nodes from which the new plants will grow. I cut a good length of this and leave it still attached to each node.


This is a node. It will become a new Strawberry plant for you.


Leave a good length of stem attached to the node.


When you have some healthy looking nodes with several sets of young leaves, you only need to bury this section so that the node is covered and a couple of leaves poke out from the soil. Leave the length of stem above ground. It will dry first while more moisture stays in the new plant as it develops roots. Give your upcoming new plants a good water with some dilute Seasol (isn’t that stuff wonderful?) and keep the area moist but not wet for the next couple of weeks.


Bury the new plant so that the node is well covered.


Give it a good water.


Leave the baby plant in the soil for a week or two, depending on the time of year. Keep the soil around the plant moist but not wet. After this time, you can try to gently pull the plant out of the ground. If you meet with resistance, stop, it means that the roots are going and holding onto the soil. If you’re really curious (as I always am), you can dig a little of the soil away and check out the roots in their debut performance.


Early roots! Hooray!


The little plants are now ready to grow right where they are, for potting on or for moving to their preferred new position. Now, you just look after them as you would any new plant. You know what to do!





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25 comments
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I thought you had to leave them connected to the original plants initially, until they'd rooted. Well you learn something every day.

@tipu curate

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Thts if you have them in the ground or if you have enough space, otherwise this method. The great irony in all this is that I let the chooks out for a forage yesterday and forgot to cover the new strawberry plants! You can guess what happened! Gotta !luv those chooks!

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Arrgh! Did you have any survivors?

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That's look gorgeous! I must try it. Thank you so much.

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We are going to be doing strawberries this year.... Hopefully we can get a good crop as my kids devour kilos of them every season. lol

thansk for sharing

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(Edited)

Many thanks for the information. I just took a photo of my strawberry plants for my post and cut away a few nodes. If only I had known. Anyway now I do - I have a few left so I will try to propagate a few plants for fun.

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Nice, thanks for the idea @ligayagardener how I wish I could grow strawberries in my garden too but I think it is impossible due to our environment here.

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I'm sure that I know someone who grows strawberries successfully in the Philippines. Let me try to remember who it is and I'll let you know.
!luv

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Thanks, anyway, I think also that somewhere herein mountain areas in Dalaguet, Cebu is growing strawberries as I can see on social media. I just don't know if it grows here in my area particularly. Anyway, can I ask what country are you from ? Your first username seems like a Filipino word. ☺

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I think my friend is in Baguio. There is a friend in Greenhills who is trying as well.

!pizza

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Oh hehe, I'm very far from Baguio but many thanks for your help, my friend.

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(Edited)

Strangely enough, my friend from Greenhills contacted me a couple of minutes after my last message. He has had a little success but nothing great. Strawberries grow well in Summer here, so its mot a heat thing. I'm wondering if the Philippines doesn't have the right pollinators?

I just remembered, my nephew is teaching at VISCA and doing his Master's degree there. I'll ask him, you've got my curiosity going about strawberries in the tropics.

BTW, yes, te first part of my account is Ligaya, happiness!

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Maybe you're right that there is something about pollination. I occasionally saw some people growing strawberries but at the same, you said they only have a few successes growing them. No worries about that @ligayagardener 🙂 thank you so much for your effort in sharing your knowledge on how to grow them. It was nice meeting you kabayan here in Hive.😊

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I got a reply from my nephew. He says Baguio is great for Strawberries. I'm always happy to share stuff. It's great that there's such a big Pilipino community here on Hive!

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