If you've ever grown strawberries, you've probably noticed that they produce long, leafless stems, which are known as "runners." However, just because they're fruitless doesn't mean you should immediately cut them off.
A green-thumbed TikToker (@user284747518) posted a quick tip for using those runners smartly to get more fruit out of your plants.
@user284747518 Abundant strawberries. How to propagate strawberries to get the most plants while not hurting the mother plant.#strawberries #propagation #gardentips ♬ original sound - All roads lead to food
To start, simply push the runners into the soil, helping them take root and produce other plants. Then, when the plants go dormant in the fall, snip them from the mother plant. You'll have multiple separate strawberry plants — plus way more berries than usual.
Tips like these help gardeners everywhere understand plants and, if desired, produce bigger yields. Strawberry seeds aren't super expensive, but why not work with nature for free?
And, depending on the season, buying strawberries at a supermarket can be surprisingly expensive. Driscoll's strawberries in July, for example, are priced at $10 for 32 ounces.
On top of the cost, there are other serious impacts connected to large-scale strawberry production. Irrigation requirements, pesticide use, plastic packaging, labor malpractice, and importation from high strawberry-producing countries such as Mexico all have repercussions for the environment and the living things within it.
As the site Impactful Ninja notes, strawberries have a relatively high carbon footprint per pound — largely due to these resource-hungry factors.
In response to the hack, TikTokers noted that the simple trick could help them grow more strawberries than they could have ever dreamed.
One user commented that they implemented a similar trip last summer and "got 75 plants from 2 plants."
Others wrote that they'd originally been uprooting the runners but were now going to try this instead.
"Answered a question I didn't know I had," one commenter wrote.
"I did not know this and had instinctively planted the runners," another added. "Now I'm glad I did."
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