Saving bare root strawberries

[curly_kate]

I've been out, trying to tame my strawberry bed, which is completely overrun with runners. This led me to think, since I bought the strawberries bare-root, maybe there was a way I could save the runners bare-root, and sell them/give them away. Anyone know how this is done?

 

[wsmoak]

I think they have to be refrigerated to be kept bare root, probably with the temperature and humidity "just so" for it to work.

I just went through the same thing, my 4x8 bed of everbearers went crazy with runners and the bermuda grass got in there. Everything was woven together so that you couldn't pull the grass without damaging the strawberries. I gave up!

So for the last several days I've been digging up strawberries, disentangling them from the grass, and repotting them into the vast collection of black plastic pots left here by the prior owner. At first, one per half gallon pot. After a while, two or three in a half gallon pot and six or seven in a larger one. There were so many plants!

But now they're all happily growing leaves in their little pots, and I can plan a much *narrower* bed for them to live in next spring.

-Wendy