strawberry runners - what is pinning?

Two methods are open to you. Fill small plant pots with potting compost and sink them to the rim next to your Strawberry plants. Then take the small new strawberry plant which you find on the end of a runner and without breaking the runner, plant the baby in the compost. When the pot is full of roots, cut the runner and plant where you want the new strawberry plant. OR. get some wire of the thickness with which paper clips are made. Bend a length of wire into a U shape. Push it into the ground with a prong on either side of a runner, so that the base of the baby plant at the end is in close contact with the soil. The baby plant will develop roots and you can either move it or leave it where it is. You can use a pebble to hold down the runner, but I have never been successful with that method, the pebbles seem to fall off! Now is the time to do it by the way as the soil is still warm enough for the plantlets to root. How long the wire clip needs to be depends on the soil. In a light soil the wire needs to be longer than in a clay soil. Experiment, the clip needs to hold the plantlet firmly against the soil.

thank you so much for your detailed and imformative answer owdboggy another job for me to get on with !

Thanks Owdboggy. I had the same problem as Alley. Now I know what I did was wrong. I'll follow your suggestion.

Thanks a million for this information. I shall now make a few strawberry plant pots to give away.