This year, our strawberry patch produced many, many quarts of strawberries. Most of the plants back there are mature, and each one produced a handful of strawberries through June. I originally planted 75 bare root plants a couple of years back. Several died that winter, but the survivors did well this winter and they were all very healthy by June.
The main problem we had last year was slugs and snails. They probably destroyed 75% or more of the strawberries. This year, the ducks wiped them all out with a daily visit to the garden. The only losses we had were due to voles and birds. Those losses were minimal even though we have a million voles and birds. I think we'll get one more year of productivity from the strawberries.
I treated the garden with vole repellent--that worked very well. I'm planning to redo the fence this fall, and hopefully that'll mostly rodent-proof the garden for a while.
I also seeded sudan grass in the strawberry patch. If it takes off, hopefully it will stifle some of the runners and help shade the berry plants through the hot months. I tried planting some last year, but it never really got started, and only patches grew. This year I planted it over several days and it looks more likely to grow.
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