Strawberries - starting them indoors?

I've ordered strawberries from a company with a very poor rep (if only I would have found this sight earlier). The good news is that we can send them the shipping label and they will send us new plants... from what I've witnessed so far is that planting them is a waste of time as the success rate is low but I think if I can start them inside I can determine which ones will survive before I plant them outside and which are trash

I'm going to be starting a bunch of seeds under fluorescents, but will these lights work for starting strawberries inside if they are already growing or do the fluorescents only work on seeds that are just starting?

I can't really help unfortunately. I bought some small strawberry plants last year; I got 6 with one having an attached runner (baby). I now I have 24 of them :-).

I don't see why the fluorescents wouldn't work, just make sure you keep them close to the tops of the plants as you would with seeds. But that's assuming that they're in decent shape in the first place--if they're in really bad condition there may not be a lot you can do. Also don't count on them sending you new plants if you send them your shipping label--many companies like that have the reputation they do because they send bad quality plants and then don't replace them/refund your money like they say they will. Plus if the majority of the plants are going to be dead each time they send them, how many times are they going to have to send you replacements before you get the number of live plants you paid for? So unless you get lucky and actually get a bunch of good plants from these people, my thought is if you really want to grow strawberries this year you should go find a company with a good rating in Watchdog and buy new ones.

Well they sent us new last year (low success rate again) so I think they will... to be honest at this point I'm extremly upset with the company and the plants that we were sent last year so I'm probably just being petty but they definately didn't provide what they promised and I'm going to make them keep sending me new until I get what I paid for

ie: shrubs that were supposed to be 2 - 3'; tall were on average 6" - 1', a lot of plants that were "dormant" were actually dead without even any roots on them (looks like someone just broke em off above the soil line), replacement for dead plants were not available... etc

If you can actually get all your plants from them eventually then by all means try--I just know most of those bad companies never come through with replacement plants either so I figured it might be time to cut your losses and start over with someone else. But maybe these guys are one step above the other bottom-of-the-barrel companies. Good luck!

Nope I am going with another company for the stuff that I really care about. I'm going to be ordering all my veggie seeds from Territory this year (They have lots of good response in the feedback area) and their catalog looked... unique? No monster tomato trees or pumpkins bigger then a kid... so I'm really looking forward to getting my stuff from them.

What I'm requesting from the other company is basically a bunch of stuff that I'll just plant in a back corner somewhere and see if it grows this time. I spent well over 100.00 on plants from them last year and since I can't return them for my money back I'll just make them keep sending me more till I get my money's worth. They shipped everything almost a month before i could plant so that there was no way I could return it for my money back.

No I can t.

I am deadly allergic to strawberries.