Strawberries – Little or no fruit so far

As some of you would have seen from previous threads this year was a bit of the test / see what happens on the plot with the first year of planting.
 
This brings me on to my strawberries, these are 2 years old and to date I’ve had little or no fruit. My assumption is this is because I’ve overcrowded the bed and cut little or no runners off, would this be correct?
 
Anyway I spent an hour this morning weeding and pruning and have circa 18 new plants for their new, better prepared bed next year?
 
Isn’t it wonderful how easy they are to propagate?

Strawberries oare one of those fruits that either exceed expectation or really disapoint.

From my limited knowledge they are very shallow rooted so need a good moisture retaining soil but also free draining. I had a fantastic early crop this year but the later varieties are poor. I always cut and pot runners from healthy plants and use this to maintain a 3 year replacement cycle.

As some of you would have seen from previous threads this year was a bit of the test / see what happens on the plot with the first year of planting.
 
This brings me on to my strawberries, these are 2 years old and to date I’ve had little or no fruit. My assumption is this is because I’ve overcrowded the bed and cut little or no runners off, would this be correct?
 
Anyway I spent an hour this morning weeding and pruning and have circa 18 new plants for their new, better prepared bed next year?
 
Isn’t it wonderful how easy they are to propagate?

Did they flower well, Danny? Or just not try to fruit at all this year?

Ours flowered and set fruit, but were early with the warm weather in the spring and then suffered from the dryness during that period. They were pretty small compared with last year.

And then the birds ate much of what made it to ripeness.

I've had more fruit from the older plants in the supermarket trolley raised bed than I have from all the plants in the ground.
I'm clearing them all out and have taken runners from the best plants which are going to be grown in planters/growbags on a table next year.
Its not been a good year for strawberries for me.

I have had a reasonable crop but not as good as expected. The enviromesh over them has stopped the bird predation but a lot have went mouldy and are struggling to ripen. It is much to do with the weather in some respect but next year I will be starting new beds with lots of organic matter incorporated.

Our strawberries have gone crazy, and we have been collecting a dish a day for quite a few weeks, with lot more to come. About 120 are from runners planted up last summer and over wintered in greenhouse.

We do have a large amount of plants, around 200, some on a large bed, other along side, and more in planters

Morning Folks

Thanks for all your responses, there certainly seems a few hits and misses apart from Mamzie who has the bases covered with 200 plants!

As I said I plan new beds next year and intend to space plants accordingly to aid the maintenance.

One last question, do people earmark 1 or 2 plants for sole production of their runners?

Just runners from healthy looking plants here, as they are effectively clones

I have had a reasonable crop but not as good as expected. The enviromesh over them has stopped the bird predation but a lot have went mouldy and are struggling to ripen. It is much to do with the weather in some respect but next year I will be starting new beds with lots of organic matter incorporated.

I had the same problem with fruit going mouldy as they ripened so only ended up with a few strawberries not even enough to make a pot of jam.