Care and feeding of strawberries in a tiny garden

I have a strawberry patch many years old which has served us well. I have a very tiny garden, so I can't migrate them and leave it fallow, and I think they deserve some care and feeding. Is there any thing in the way of garden fertilizer that I can buy that is good for strawberry plants? I know enough not to put raw compost/horse produce on them, but I don't know what they really need.

Thanks for any advice.

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

Strawberries loose their vigour after the 3rd or 4th year, you might be better off potting up some runners and then grubbing out the old plants, replacing them with the ones you've grown on this year.

 

If I was not such a bird lover I would fertilize mine with the sad, tiny, little bodies of the birds that eat every single one. I am going to start harvesting the runners that mine are putting out now and make a larger bed of them - lovely plants, sort of like a wistful flower. (the birds, and from the sign, mice or rats, are now well through my blueberry crop too, and eyeing my blackberry crop and will end with my grapes.)

 

You'll have to get some Blackcurrants Colne, birds don't bother with them

 

My birds would! they would eat the rocks if there were any (all sand and clay here) but I think they already ate them.

But blackcurrants are supposedly, like gooseberries, not successful here; too warm. Can you grow them from seed? I have hesitated buying plants from a postal dealer because they get so much for them. They are unheard of here.

 

You can grow them from seed but they would revert to their wild ancestors pretty quickly. Think they were originally a woodland plant, so if you've got any dappled shade to try one.

Last one I bought was £1.99 from Woolworths, had loads of bushes from cuttings off of it

 

Thanks Zigs. I have already extracted some runners in the hope of starting a new generation, but I'd like to help the soil a bit before replanting it and this is what I don't know anything about!

 

Zigs, I have a forest of dappled shade - I need seeds because the plants are not for sale here - and very expensive to order.