I use a rating system to help me decide what to grow and it considers lots of factors, but the main ones are how tasty it is, how healthy it is to eat, how expensive it is to buy, how big it's harvest is, when it's harvest period is and whether I can buy it organically and if not how much it's sprayed.
Strawberries rate quite high, they are extremely tasty and probably the heathiest sweet treat around and expensive to buy. They are also the earliest sweet taste available to harvest, although new season carrots are close and mangetout peas not long after. Importantly they are one of the most sprayed commercial crops. Their only downside and it's a big one, is that they occupy a lot of ground, for a relatively short harvest period. However their benefits far outweigh their downsides.
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I like to think of many crops in the same way I think of potatoes. There are first-earlies, which I force for a very early crop in spring. Then second earlies, which I grow for harvest in early summer, followed by my main crop in mid-summer. There are also ever-bearing strawberries that you can think of like your 'Christmas' potatoes, which you can harvest up to the first frost.
https://airtable.com/shrAUlr60x4ptkpMG
Lets take a quick look at each of these:
Ideally I pot up my first earlies from runners that were rooted in the previous year, i.e. plants that are 1 year old in September. A single plant is potted on into home made compost, in 10-12" hanging baskets and they stay in these baskets for their whole lives.
<aside> 💡 You will often see articles in magazines or by plant suppliers squeezing multiple plants into a container, don't do it. I just think they are trying to sell you more plants! A single healthy plant will give you a better yield than lots of stressed one in my view.
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In September they are lifted from an established bed, thinning the bed out to ensure it doesn't get too crowded. I usually dig them out with a trowel, trying to go down deep to get the whole root system. They are left outside in all weather until February, although if the weather in January is particularly cold/wet (it was this year) I bring them into the polytunnel early. I want them to have experienced a dozen or more frosts before they come into the relative warmth.
First earlies in the polytunnel, one plant per basket
Once in the tunnel I hang them from the crop bars and there they stay, lightly watered until they start actively growing in early spring. At this point I give them soluble strawberry feed, I use Vitax. I gradually increase the frequency of the feed as the weather warms.
As the weather warms the compost will start to shrink from the sides of the container and so it's important to press new compost down the sides of the basket, otherwise water will just run straight out of the pot.
<aside> 💡 Because of this shrinkage I'm experimenting with a different mix this year, 50% home made compost, with 50% Jiffy compost, which includes a wetting agent. Hopefully the addition of the wetting agent will hold moisture better
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Strawberries normally only need water every one or two weeks, but in containers, in the heat of spring, they benefit from it every couple of days.
Strawberries in May, I have 15 of these hanging baskets
Grown this way I normally harvest my first strawberries in late April/early May and they keep cropping for at least a month, by which time my second earlies are ready. As soon as the weather warms (usually mid-May) I move the baskets outside, the tunnel is too hot for them.
<aside> 💡 My tunnel isn't heated and through spring it frequently freezes (-2 to -3c) while the plants are in full flower, I've never lost a fruit. I attribute this to the plants being dry and high off the ground.
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Once the harvest stops you have two options, pot on runners and use them for next year, or compost the plants and their compost. I usually compost them, because I want the plant pots to sow salad carrots in August for a winter harvest.