Growing wild strawberries from seed

Fragaria chiloensis is a wild strawberry distributed across the Pacific coast. It has several subspecies, and is considered a vital resource for migratory birds. I was inspecting the landscaping near my local roads and discovered in several places wild strawberries growing under the cover of other, deliberately planted plants. They are fruiting right now, so I collected a bunch as I found them. I don't want to eat these since they were near roads in decorative landscaping, which means car exhaust and pesticides. But I'd like to grow more with it.

I'm wondering if it's better to just plant the whole strawberry and let seeds sprout from that, or to separate the seeds from fruit and distribute it more evenly. I collected 4oz. of strawberries, so I'm not sure how many seeds that amounts to. Has anyone here tried growing wild strawberries before?

I've tried it before and it was a fail. I bought seeds online but I don't remember who I bought them from. Not even one sprouted. Haven't tried since, but I'd like to.

When I was a kid, I found some in the yard which was pretty cool. That was the only time. Before that, I didn't even know there was such a thing as wild strawberries lol!

I have grown Fragaria moschata - F. virginiana and F. vesca from seed before.

I would put them in a blender or something, afterwards you could put the remains through a fine strainer and dry out the seeds for planting.

I have tried putting seeds in the refrigerator  vs no fridge. The refrigerator seeds came up more plentiful and germinated faster.

I wouldn't bury the fruit, strawberry seeds need light to germinate. Letting it sit outside might work, rotting fruit shouldn't hurt the seeds. An animal might decide to snatch them though. Surface sow the seeds in a prepared / disturbed spot or start them indoors.

All of these plants ultimately died, I decided to dig them up and move them. They didn't like that.

I've grown non running F. vesca from seed extracted from fruit, a few times.  I think that fresh seed has much better viability than stored and will germinate better.  I just squished the fruit onto kitchen tissue paper, left it to dry and then sowed it.  That's OK for little fruit, but you may want to get rid of some pulp for larger fruit.  I do this for tomatoes too and it seems to work OK.  With small seed like strawberries they can be difficult to remove from the paper, but you can plant them paper and all.
I just sowed mine in a pot outside, but they do require stratification to germinate.  It may be worth putting the pot in the fridge for about a month to give a 'winter' chill period before putting out.  I agree that surface sowing would be best, and keep out of the sun so they don't dry out too much.  If you have plenty, you could just mix them with sand or water and distribute where you want them to grow.  I found they do transplant if you prick them out while small, but they can dry out easily and die.
Good luck!

I grew some Fragaria vesca (alpine strawberry) from seed a few years ago and had success.  I think I bought the seeds from the Strawberry Store.  They have a germination guide at https://thestrawberrystore.com/files/Germination.pdf.  

I grow fragaria virginiana but started with runners from wild plants growing on our property.  I am also growing alpine strawberries from seed this year with excellent results!  Does the variety you're referring to produce runners?  If so it might be worthwhile to obtain one for use as a mother plant.

My alpines were not supposed to runner.  I liked that, as I wanted them to stay put as a border.  I moved, so I don't have them right now but hope to try again next year.  They were supposed to be plants that could be divided eventually, so I have dreams of having a really tasty border in my front yard.  Alpine strawberries are ridiculously tasty.  

This species does make runners! Everytime I found one in a patch of landscaping, it had basically taken over the understory of whatever bushes/shrubs were growing there. Except in places where the English Ivy was running rampant

Malek, I had a Toscana strawberry in a hanging basket several years ago and it readily seeded for two springs afterward from strawberries that had fallen onto the ground below.  When I'm growing the alpine strawberries, I put the seed in the freezer for 4-6 weeks before planting to simulate winter.  In fact the two varieties I have ready to plant outside were actually in the freezer from last spring as I got busy and forgot about them.  I didn't have much hope, but germination was great!  After the initial seed sowing, I misted the seeds 2-3 times a day with fine mist from a spray bottle.  This keeps the seed moist, yet not oversaturated.  Of course inside time is more abundant in late winter and I imagine I'll enclose the seed I'm about to plant inside of a ziplock bag as I don't see them getting mist more than once a day now.  I also occasionally sprayed with a 10:1 solution of 3% hydrogen peroxide and water if I saw signs of mold or fungus on the soil.  

I appreciate the tips, Michelle! I'm not finding much about cultivating this specific species of strawberry, but I did find this vendor selling Fragaria chiloensis seeds from Canada. They advice that I should not freeze it (Pacific mild climate) but a stay in the fridge will do some good. So I popped my berries in the fridge, and I'll be planting them in a few weeks.

I went out looking again today, and got 12oz of berries! They're seriously everywhere, it's a prolific weed. The ones growing without a shrub or bush covering them had much more fruit. I sense that as May passes by into June more of the different patches I discovered will be fruiting. Microclimates are the name of the game when you're this close to the coast!

I also found a patch where it was in direct competition with some English Ivy. Alas, it wasn't public land, or I would've ripped out the ivy.

I had the chance to volunteer at Garden for the Environment today, a demo garden in the city. They've only just started having volunteers again, after stopping due to COVID. Because of this there were a lot of overgrown grasses, shrubs, and vines lurking about, including the strawberries that inspired this post! They were growing throughout the entire garden.

According to the gardeners there this variety is particularly drought tolerant, and likes well draining soil. Unfortunately whoever planted them did so a while ago, so I don't know what it started from in their garden. Seems like it would make a great choice for productive groundcover in this region, it grows well under bushes and such without much effort. I didn't find any growing nearby, but when you're closer to the heart of the city there just isn't as much space for things to grow.

So after I gathered all those strawberries, I kept them in my fridge for a couple months. I wanted to try germinating them. Some of them, I mashed up with a blender to get the seeds out, and planted them right in the soil. For others, I just kept the berry whole and tossed it on the soil. I put them in a big rectangular planter next to a south facing window at the beginning of summer, and promptly forgot to water it for months. That's what I like about planting outside - the world can handle the watering for me!

The seeds all got quite dried out. The berries that were whole dried up into little clusters of seeds. Which brings me to today - I took all the soil in the rectangular planter, transplanted a spearmint plant into it, and put it outside. I thought some seeds might sprout, but they're being very successful! What I've noticed is that the berries I left whole have a very high germination rate. Most of the ones I see sprouting now that they got rained on are in little clusters, that are dried up berries. The loose seeds don't seem to have done as well.

Considering they spent months in the sun with no water, I'm impressed by how successful the dried berries are. It makes me think that drying the berries whole is a better way to store them for later planting than extracting the seeds. You can just toss them anywhere you want the wild strawberries to grow - in nature, I almost always see them growing under something, so they're great companion plants.

I've been plucking out little clusters of strawberry sprouts and putting them in other containers. I think the spearmint roots might interfere with the strawberry roots, but we'll see how they do. I've added strawberries to some large decorative container plants I have, so we'll see how the polyculture does. As an added bonus, I was pulling some blackberries when I accidentally got some strawberry runners that were growing under them. I planted them in containers and they're still alive! It's funny how winter is when everything comes to life in California.