Now what to do with Strawberries ??

I have 30 strawberry plants growing in one of those large plastic strawberry planters. They finished fruiting some time ago but I have continued to water it well. The leaves have grown huuuuuge, and naturally there are lots of runners. I may peg down a few of these although it is a bit tricky in a planter. My real Q is, lots of the leaves have gone brown now and look a bit tatty. Is this normal now? What sort of care do I have to give to the plants now, and over the winter until next year? Do they require to be cut back at all or do I just leave them be?
Thank you
Blue

 

Hi Blue,

I'd just give em a dressing of compost or rotted moo poo & leave the leaves to build up strength for the plants next year.

 

Chop off the runners if you don't intend to root them as they are taking energy away from the main crowns. Normally this should be done as soon as the runners start to develop.
You can cut off dead leaves now if you want or leave it until early winter when they've all turned brown.
A bit of a feed will help build up the crowns before they go dormant.

 

I've never cut mine back, they will die back over winter but come again as good as ever next spring...they dont really require too much work

 

I think the thing about cutting back the dead material is that it reduces the chance of carrying over diseases from one season to the next.
Gardeners using straw under their plants used to set fire to the straw at the end of the season. I usually just give mine a quick blast with the flame gun, it leaves a nice tidy bed and zapps a few bugs too.

 

I usually layer some runners into 4" pots and chuck away the old plants and start with fresh plants the following season, mine are grown in containers, only have 12.

Pete

 

This is great advice.
When you strawberries in pots, would you guys suggest to bring them inside over the winter? Or just leave them outside?

We usually have REALLY cold winters where I live.

 

Hi Articfox,

If you had somewhere cool but light then yes, but if you just bring them into a warm living room they will just grow leggy.

You live in Sweden or Bognor then ?

 

I leave my strawberries outside, put them in a sheltered corner and if you think
it would help cover them with a layer or two of fleece in the coldest part of the
winter, mine are quite hardy here in deepest Norfolk.

Pete

 

I live in Scotland.
Thanks for the advice.

 

I bought some cheap greenhouse staging from Wilkos (£10 - it's only 28cm x 106 cm)) which I've put in a 'quiet' corner. I've wrapped around the outside some of that 'knitted' greenhouse shading and put some heavy duty clear polythene on the top. I use this to overwinter things like strawberry plants (I find my coldframe is a magnet for slugs) and if it gets very cold, I put a bit of horticultural fleece over the front. Because the main structure of this staging is only made from thin metal rods, I find it's easy to attach the fleece just using a few ordinary household pegs.

 

Pot on the runners if your parent plants are 3 years plus, these will replace the ageing parents in spring. Leave the plants to the elements, any that perish deserve to!

All my strawberry plants endured the worst winter we've have in a decade or so and produced the most abundant crop I've ever had this spring/summer.

Strawberries are tough, let them tough it out.

I allow the dead leaves to rot down in the bed, these leaves along with the straw I lay on the bed in early spring add nutrients to the bed, I also feed when the plants are in fruit.