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Growing strawberries is different from just about anything else we grow. Leeks and garlic are similar in that they over-winter. But I'm still learning how to cultivate strawberries for good production.

At least I can spend time with the strawberries when they need it, in the fall when other cultivation needs are less.

A strawberry produces for about 2, maybe 3 years. After than production and fruit quality deteriorate.

So, the initial transplanting of strawberry crowns must wait a year before effective production. This means clipping the flowers of the very first transplants.

After the first season the first plants send out runners (many!) that root nearby. I transplant these runner plants to make the initial crop for the following season, which is their first and so they are treated like a new crop.

While the second planting grows, the initial plants are in full productivity - for two, maybe three, years.

To keep this going I plant a third bed from the runners of the previous crops.

As I repeat the cloning process there will be a slow increase in production, and there are at least two plots at optimum production.

In the fourth year, the very first plot is removed and the plants composted to make way for a new generation of plants from runners from the second and third plots.

I grow only June bearing strawberry plants that are grown originally in the Pacific Northwest, Shuksan and Rainier. There are varieties that are called everbearing, but this means there is a second crop in late summer. I avoid everbearing for several reasons: they aren't as tasty as June bearing, especially in the summer, and I prefer to have only one push in June to manage the strawberries - the big vegetable harvests occur in later summer.