Quinalt Everbearing Strawberries in an Office

I've been growing some Quinalt strawberries, and I decided it would be fun to grow them in my office. I'm next to enormous windows, and the berries get tons of light and seem to be doing really well. Right now, they've been developing a lot of foliage and have been sending out tons of runners.

But...I suppose right now, I'm not sure what to do with the runners. I'm a bit new to strawberries, and I wasn't sure how much runners a single rooted area could support for berry production.

The pot's about 9 inches across, and I actually constructed a trellis behind the pot that's about two feet taller than the pot.

The longest runner goes to the top of the trellis and back down, so about 4 feet in length.

So...I've got all these runners, but none of them are really taking root, because they're all going up the trellis. Should I be snipping them off and transplanting them into other pots? Just how much can this one pot handle by itself?

Attached in an image showing the front, the base of the plant, and the back.

Seleniat, Your 9" pot is about the right size for that one plant. Easiest way to get all those new plants to root is to use styro coffee cups of soil and a straightened out paper clip to hold the new plants against the soil. When the new plants 'feel' the moistened soil they will put out roots. But DO NOT snip the runners from the parent plant until after they have all developed some roots of their own.

With the ideal temperature conditions in your office, those runners might just continue to grow many more new plants over the next few months.

I bought one full grown plant at a local nursery in early spring of 2006. By November I had 56 new plants, all just from the runners. I kept most of them. Now, all of those plants are putting out runners. Since I don't want any more, I just pinch off every new runner that shows up.

Thanks very much for the reply. So I suppose the answer is that the trellis isn't really necessary? I suppose I was looking at the picture of the place I bought it from:

http://www.directgardening.com/detail.asp?pid=1288

Which seemed to be this big bushy thing. If I develop and then remove the runners, will the base plant eventually become big and bushy like that picture?

Correct, the trellis isn't necessary, unless you like the appearance.

Your plant will probably fill out as well as the one in the photo from directgardening. But unless your plant gets a full day of direct sun it will not produce nearly as many berries as the one in the photo.

I have a small raised bed 3' x 5' that has 8 plants in it (two rows of 4). You can see how big and bushy they have grown. These plants are about a year old now, started from the runners.

But I never got nearly as much production as the one in the pic, probably because they only get about 5 hours of direct sun

Once again, thanks so much for the help.

Honestly, I do kind of like the appearence of the trellis, but I worry that it'll hurt the growth of the main plant. Any idea how big a concern that should be for me?

Sel,
Years ago I read that it would be best to pinch off the runners of 1st year plants to force all the growing energy to be focused on the parent plant. Just how much the runners take away from the growth of the parent plant, I really don't know.

You might consider compromising and allow just a few of the runner plants to root and pinch off the rest.