Steve:

I'd plant them as soon as you can get them in the ground. Don't worry even about a hard freeze, they'll be fine. Until then store them in a frig without any fruit such as apples. Apples can release ethylene that might damage your plants. Or store them in a cool location outdoors but I won't let the roots freeze.

The Fruitnut

Yup... get them in asap... sooner the better. The frost is out of the ground in the sunny spots down here in LaCrosse...

Too bad i broke my wrist! 4 days ago...

What kind of strawberries?

I saw a bee 3 days ago which was very nice to see.

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the tips. I checked my raised beds this afternoon and found quite a bit of frozen ground still but I will get them in as soon as possible. Until then they are in the frig.

Frank, I got 20 (2 bags of 10) allstar and 10 quinault. They came in a green package with a label that says "guaranteed to grow" - all for $3 a bag! Couldn't resist! Don't ever remember seeing that sort of thing at walmart before. West side of Green Bay if you're interested.

No bees around here yet. I'm in northern Door County - ice is still in Green Bay and some snow in piles but spring is in the air. Enough to dream anyway!! :)

Thanks again for the advice,
Steve

steseaq
HOW COME MY WAL-MART NEVER CARRY BARE ROOT STRAWBERRIES?
I'm so jealous. I miss the bare root strawberries from Home Depot. My local Wal-Mart doesn't carry these at all. I never seen my local nursery garden center carry Allstar. Is it a day-neutral one?

Good luck with ur plants!

I hope your strawberries do better than mine. I bought some of the Walmart Allstar (junebearer) bare root strawberries (I couldn't resist the price either) and put them into the ground within a couple days of purchase.. That was over a week(10 days) and so far not a hint of green anywhere. I am holding some everbearers for another plot that isn't quite ready yet due to the rain.. Maybe I'll have better luck. If not I may buy a single plant this year and save my own runners to transplant and populate a bed for next year.

If you want to store it. You probably just leave them in the original bag( which is usually brown/black or green). I believe the purpose is to black the light that makes them photosynthesize. Therefore, they will remain dormant. Keep them away from excess moisture and heat. In L.A, our garge actually is the hottest parts of our house. You might not want to store them in your garage.

Hello!

I bought some bare root strawberries maybe 3 weeks ago? from Wal*Mart. I was wondering how to store mine as I have at least a month before I can put them in the ground. At first, I put them in my basement where it's cool and dark. After a week or so, I started to get concerned about them. I didn't want them to die!! After much thought and looking online, this is what I did back around March 22nd.

I first soaked a bundle of 10 roots (the entire bunch that was in the bag) for maybe a minute. After some soaking you can see the 2 rubber bands that need to be cut to free the roots. Then I separated each root and laid them on some folded newspaper, making sure the crowns were a little ABOVE the top of the paper.
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I then folded up the bottom part of the paper to cover all the roots and then rolled the roots together and secured the whole business with 2 rubber bands. I put them in a container and watered them completely.
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I keep them in a sunny spot in my bedroom. I take them outside wheneve it's sunny and warm. I keep the newspaper wet at all times; never let it dry out! I don't let them sit in water though. I give them liquid fertilizer once a week. Here is a picture of them 2 weeks later:
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I did purchase more strawberry plants because I noticed some were not greening up like the others ones did. From my exerience, the best plants were the ones where life was visible. The heavies, wettest packages were not the best ones....the best ones were the bags with whitish/green stems/leaves visible.

HTH :o)
Catherine

Thanks Catherine for posting the photos. I too bought some strawberry plants (from Wal*Mart), and it is way too early to plant out, in that each of the 13 plants (one had rot, and the 14th had gone mushy - this from a box that said there'd be 12) each of the plants has a white shoot ending in baby green leaves, so they've definitely broken dormancy. I plan to plant in a large pot, with a smaller one sunk in the middle, so too big to lug in and out on colder days. I will use your newspaper method, and leave bare root. This sounds like much less work than sticking each in it's own pot for the month.

I'm glad that your plants ended up sprouting, but unless the lighting in the pictures is bad, the bulk of the plants (the shriveled black parts) have rotted or dehyrated from sitting on the shelf (at room temperature)at Walmart for who knows how long. What is likely sprouting is the 10% of the crown that survived. I've bought these "berries in a box" before, as well as big, healthy plants from Nourse, Burnt Ridge, etc., and you'll get berries a lot faster by spending $10 instead of $5 by ordering "fresh" plants.

Hi I'm new here!
I also bought a couple of strawberry plants from Walmart a few weeks back- I have Ozark Beauty. I found some Quinault plants at Lowes. I also got some Tristar bareroot plants from Kmart. All of the plants seem to be doing well right now but only about half of the bareroot plants that I bought survived so far- many were diseased. So far I like the Quinaults the best, they seem to grow at a very fast pace. For now I'm keeping the plants indoors on a sunny windowsill.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Red Thumb