Wild Strawberry

I have the same problem. I think the only solution is to move!

You have to be persistent and remove every single plant. Miss one, it seeds, and you are off to the plant chase again. I have none and neighbors on each side are covered. I watch each spring and remove the few the birds have "dropped" in on me!!

Tom J

Me too. You pull and the runner simply breaks. I keep pulling every green leaf, then 3-4 weeks later they come back, then the pulling starts again. Then I find I missed some that already bearing red fruit. I leave the wild strawberry growing on the bank of the stream as it helps the bank from eroding. The berries are small and very tart--maybe they would make a good jelly. At least it's not poison ivy!

I pulled the stuff until my fingers bled this year. It is growing in a bed amongst some vinca, under perennial geraniums, in clumps of daylilies. It is virtually impossible to get it all and if even a small piece is left behind it grows back with vigor.

My theory is that any weed useful in a culinary way can be eradicated by finding it, well, useful and edible. It makes a certain amount of sense, since if you harvest every wild strawberry you can find, it won't re-seed, and dandelions and plantain and lamb's quarters without leaves won't thrive.

Try thinking of it as a crop, not a weed. :-)

Well, I've got a bumper crop and really don't want it. Read somewhere that wild strawberries LOVE acid soil so I'm going to give them a dose of lime this winter to see what happens next spring. In the meantime, I'll continue to use the dandelion digger and try to get as many of them as possible.