On Thu, 9 Jun 2011 20:05:36 +0100, "Endulini"
wrote:

Hi,

I've a few strawberry plants in hanging baskets that are starting to put out
suckers, should I chop these off so it's concentrating on the fruit or let
them go their thing?

Strawberries naturally put out runners (as you call suckers) as part
of their self propagation activity. Your average strawberry plant will
fruit for 2-3 years and then needs to be replaced. The runners provide
this replacement. On the ground they will naturally root at some point
and, having rooted, can be severed from the parent plant and, in due
course, replanted to replace the parents somewhere in the strawberry
patch.

In a hanging basket, the runners have nowhere to root and they won't
be worth much by the time they've reached the ground (you'll see
plantlets developing at various points along the runner - these
plantlets occur where it wants to root and they will die fairly
quickly if there's no rooting opportunity). Now if you have some way
to suspend some, say, 3 inch pots on string below your hanging
baskets, you could encourage the runners to root into them and, once
rooted, chop them off and then use them to increase/replace your stock
next year.

If you can't do this, it's unlikely that hanging baskets would support
additional rooting plants so I would chop the runners off as close to
the parent plant as soon as you can and repeat as soon as further
runners appear; that way the runners won't take any energy from the
fruiting plants. Then in a few years you'll need to buy new plants.

Incidentally, in hanging baskets you really need to feed, feed and
feed. Use a high potash feed such as tomato feed (Tomorite for
example) or something called "Flower Power" (available from the QVC
shopping channel on the telly) at least once a week and you'll
increase your crop a fair bit.

HTH
Jake