I have had to be a bit creative with my strawberry growing this year and try to use some height because of space restrictions.
I have created a 'strawberry wall' (see pics) and I am very pleased with the result, I just have to figure out where on earth I am going to put year 3 of my 3 year cycle plants next year
I have also bought myself 4 'Maxim' strawberry plants recently, apparantly they can grow to the size of the palm of your hand, so I couldn't resist to try them for novelty value alone. They are growing huge already as you can see in the pics, I just hope they will taste as nice.
I have the tastiest looking strawberry just daring me to eat it, everytime I enter the garden, but I promised myself that I would get to eat a bowl of strawberries this year so I am resisting, as last year they all got eaten individually whilst in the garden deadheading etc, my bad!
It hasn't been all plain sailing though, I lost around 15 plants over winter, to what I thought may be vine weevil grubs. However on closer inspection it appears they have rotted away due to being to wet with the water retaining gel crystals I used.
I have learnt from that mistake and planted all this year runners in compost alone.