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It's a bit more difficult as you have the baskets up in the air - but
what you need to do is to secure these new shoots by pegging them down
into small flower pots full of compost. (Maybe make up a u-shaped piece
of wire to keep the shoots in contact with the compost. Maybe you could
put up a little shelf and train a row of runners along a row of
flowerpots...?
Keep an eye on the runners - and keep the compost moist - you'll see
roots growing from the nodes where the leaves are. Once the roots are
well enough developed (probably at the end of the summer) you can snip
through the stalks to separate the new plants, and pot them up into
larger pots to over-winter.
As it gets cooler they'll die back, but should survive to grow on again
next year...
We started out with 20 strawberry plants in our tunnel 2 years ago -
we now have probably 80 of them and they're all fruiting at once !
Almost sick of the sight of strawberries !
You can ussually get 2 - 3 seasons from each plant - so don;t thow away
the ones that yuo have growing at the moment. Give them some new compost
next year and they'll fruit again for you.
Hope this helps
Adrian
It's a runner. Don't use more than 2 runners per plant.You need to pin
down the runner (use a hairpin) onto a full pot of damp soil at the
point just behind that small formed leaf. Trim off the extension just
beyond the leaf. After at least a month the maiden plant should have
sufficiently rooted. Remove the hairpin. Give the plant a gentle tug
just to make sure.Then cut off the maiden from the runner and remove
the runner from the parent plant.Make sure the soil is kept damp
throughout this time. In early October plant the maiden out, keeping
its root ball intact.
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Thanks very much for the advice! I hope I've understood correctly, the roots come out of the tops of the runners? Should I pin them down into the pots right away? Thanks again for being so helpful.
Sarah