If you want fresh, juicy strawberries from your own garden next spring, now is the time to plant them! Fortunately, many varieties of strawberries multiply themselves through runners, which makes it very easy to plant more, or increase the size of your strawberry patch.

If you’ve ever grown strawberries with runners, you know that they can spread like wildfire all over the surrounding area if you’re not careful. If you have just a few plants, don’t worry, you’ll soon have more for free! And if you know anyone that grows strawberries, they may be more than happy to give you some runners.

You can plant these in the fall, and the new plants will start producing berries as soon as the next spring. (We planted ours last year in mid-December here in Ohio, and they did great!)

Here are some easy tips for propagating strawberries from runners, whether you’re planting in the garden, or in pots or baskets: