Take manicure scissors and just snop off the weakest of the seedlings in each cupe. That way you won't disturb the seedlings you want to keep.

I do give away the common whites/yellows or the varieties that have been given to me, but I have other varieties (Gulf Stream, Hilo Beauty, Moragne #23, Vera Cruz Rose, Cancun Pink, Pu'u Kahea, Brea (not well known, from Jack Morgan), Kamiyama Rainbow, Plastic Pink, Nebel's Rainbow and on and on and on....) that I paid for as cuttings from mostly reputable and a few shady places. I run up quite the bill every spring with new plants and all the fertilizers that the plants need...DH hasn't said anything yet, but if our roles were reversed I would put the kibosh to the plumeria habit if I saw the bills coming in and stuff going out for free! Fortunately I sold a few bigger trees and that gave me the go ahead to bring in some more cuttings. :-) chuy,email me and let me know what you're looking for, I'm in North OC.

Big disclaimer: I am growing strawberries for the first time. I know nothing. That said... Mine have been going in round pots, 6 to a pot, for over a month now. Some of the berries are wanting to turn red. Even at 6-8 inches apart I can see that it won't be long before it is hard to distinguish between individual plants. So if something is planted in between it needs to be "airy" enough, not a plant with a ton of structure at least in their leaves. So the idea of putting alyssum sounds like a really good idea if that works for your climate in the summer. You would want something that just peeks through the running strawberry leaves and the hanging fruit. Lobelia would be another option. Julie

hi heather- I got them over the weekend, and planted them "about" 3-4 per square foot. I think I left about 6-8" in between each plant. Anyway, I think I'll go with the (unshredded)newspaper for weed control, and cover it with hay or pine needles to keep the fruits off the wet newspaper, and to keep the newspaper from blowing away on me. I found someone's blog online about planting runners, and it seemed that it took quite some time for the runner to develop into a good-sized plant (the pic I saw was of a 9-month old plant...hold on, lemme see if I can find it again...Found it...linked below...), so I'm thinking that this new runner plant would be NEXT year's plant (but at that point would probably be considered 2 years old, so like you said, this year's runners are one year old if you take them early & root them? I guess timing of rooting the runner would make a world of difference here. It's all very confusing, and to add to the fact that this person linked below is gardening in Ireland...somewhere in Zone 9. And that info is hardly applicable to a Zone 5er's 120-day growing season. Sigh. Here is a link that might be useful: Make a Rainbow Planting Strawberry Runners