[londongardener]

Where is a good place to buy strawberry runners?  Ideally earliers and they are going into a planter

[snowdrops]

Ken muir is one that springs to mind, no recent experience of them though.

[bravemurphy]

Someone on your lotty that already has runners to get rid of?

We did ours on the weekend and after planting another row still had more than a barrow load destined for the fire.

[Kristen]

Mine came from Ashridge Trees.  Somewhat limited range, good quality plants, about 85p each (depending on qty)

http://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/soft-fruit-bushes/strawberry-plants

Ken Muir looks to be £1 each current (on sale, normally £1.25), its a company with a good reputation though, particularly for Strawberries

Probably depends whether you want anything else at the same time, and who sells it   I would choose the variety(ies) I wanted first, and then a suitable supplier.

[TheWhiteRabbit]

We got ours from Marshalls but then, they were one of the few that sold Marshmallow which was a variety I was after.

I have to say that the Buddy we also got from Marshalls have been incredibly vigorous and the strawberries that we've had off them have been very tasty and they're still going (they're a perpetual variety).

[londongardener]

Mine came from Ashridge Trees.  Somewhat limited range, good quality plants, about 85p each (depending on qty)

http://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/soft-fruit-bushes/strawberry-plants

Ken Muir looks to be £1 each current (on sale, normally £1.25), its a company with a good reputation though, particularly for Strawberries

Probably depends whether you want anything else at the same time, and who sells it   I would choose the variety(ies) I wanted first, and then a suitable supplier.

As an inexperienced gardener with no family to ask for advice I am not sure what variety to go for.

[monkeywobbler]

J Parkers do 75 plants for £25 (three varieties) and they're fab - I would recommend them!

[fatcat1955]

Try Swanley Village nurseries on amazon, brill plants cheap as chips.

[Kristen]

As an inexperienced gardener with no family to ask for advice I am not sure what variety to go for.

I suggest avoiding Everbearers - they will bear much less, per plant, but over a longer period. You need a lot more plants, therefore, to get "enough for a meal" - although they will fruit for a longer period.  Better to get "plenty" during their harvest season IMHO.

I reckon you then need say 6 plants each of an Early, Mid and Late variety.  If you find you need more plants than that they you can take runners off those plants in the first year to get more. (If you have space maybe get more than one variety for each harvest-period, then you can compare and see which you prefer [its subjective, of course, and may also be influenced by your soil and husbandry - so the one I rave about may not be the one that you find that you love ]

Other than that I suggest you choose varieties that people rave about, or the descriptions indicate "great flavour" (in preference to "high yield" - although some will offer both no doubt )

Even if you plant the Supermarket varieties, harvested fresh from your garden they will taste better than shop bought ones.

One thing I had seen done is to plant, say, three rows and then to "cull" one of the rows each year, and take a runner off a remaining row to replace the culled plants, that way the bed is perpetual - otherwise you need to make a fresh bed every 3 years or so, and for that year you have twice the area needed for Strawberry plants (or you have 3 beds in continuous rotation).

[ryetek]

One thing I had seen done is to plant, say, three rows and then to "cull" one of the rows each year, and take a runner off a remaining row to replace the culled plants, that way the bed is perpetual - otherwise you need to make a fresh bed every 3 years or so, and for that year you have twice the area needed for Strawberry plants (or you have 3 beds in continuous rotation).

That's exactly how we organise our strawberries but with 4 rows. It seems to work well for us. Furthermore the new runners always produce less strawberries in their first year so we've found keeping some older plants (as opposed to creating fresh beds after, say, 3 years) evens out each year's harvest. Finally we never put the new runners back where we've "culled" the old row. We keep the rows "moving" along the plot. I'm not sure what we'll do when we get to the end of the plot however as this has not happened yet.