[kiaweeze]

I hope a more experienced strawberry grower will be able to help me!!....I planted my first year baby plants from last years crop, some i deflowered to establish their root system for next year and a few i planted to let fruit this year with the intention of throwing away the plant at the end of the season, as next year I will have plenty established plants. Most of them did not flower anyway so are they likely to be dud plants or is it worth keeping them for next year?

Sorry if this question has already been asked, I looked and couldn't find the answer and I do not want to go to the effort keeping plants that are unlikely to produce!!

Thanks for any help.

[prakash_mib]

very strange practise of mollycoddling things. 
you dont need to deflower to make the plants stronger and you dont need to throw away the plants which produced fruits this year.
Mine has produced fruits for third year (only a couple in first year though) and they are good going.(somebody said in this forum they get tired after 7 years)
What I do is I carefully let the runners (not too many from the mother plant) which will degrade the mother plant.
I think thats all you need to do apart from feeding and picking the fruits on strawbs.

[TerryB]

Yes they are late but I'd given a good feed and you may still get some.

Prakash
Some books do say remove first year flowers to make plants stronger for following years but like, you I've never done it.

[Kleftiwallah]

I did.     Cheers,    Tony.

[sunshineband]

Once the plants have finished fruiting (the ones you left with flowers on I mean  ), they will start growing runners.

If you don't need more plants, just chop these off.

I cut the old foliage down too, and give them a feed of chicken manure, and they go on for years 

Hope that helps.

[Ice]

I did.     Cheers,    Tony.

And................?

[davidmw]

Do strawberry plants tend to grow better direct in soil. I have 2 planters but havent really had a massive crop this year.  This is there first year though but am tempted to move it direct in to the soil and train the runners around it.

[prakash_mib]

Do strawberry plants tend to grow better direct in soil. I have 2 planters but havent really had a massive crop this year.  This is there first year though but am tempted to move it direct in to the soil and train the runners around it.

strawberry plants produce more crop from second year onwards as it tries to establish itself in the first year. 
given proper feed and water they should do allright in the planter

[bigben]

Do strawberry plants tend to grow better direct in soil. I have 2 planters but havent really had a massive crop this year.  This is there first year though but am tempted to move it direct in to the soil and train the runners around it.

It depends on the planter. A lot of planters tend to have space for too many strawberries growing from limited soil so you might be better in the soil. I ran out of space in my bed and so resorted to using a planter but the strawberries have done very little in the planter. I think they will do better in the second year wherever they are - soil or planter but it is often easier to keep a constant supply of nutrients and water when they are in the soil.

kiaweeze - I also read that you get a better crop if you cut off flowers in the first year. However I did not do it. Some of mine produced a good crop and some very little but I am hopeful for next year.  I have read that they tend to need to be renewed after about 3 years rather than the 7 someone else quoted. After this the yield suffers.