Kitchen Garden Forum

I have a bit of a dilemma! Last year I belatedly dug up a patch on my allotment in November (late I know!)and planted semi-established strawberry runners. They grew OK but produced very little fruit (which may in part be due to a wood pigeon invasion). The patch is now neglected and weed ridden.
Shall I just dig up the lot chuck them and buy in fresh stock or replant the reasonably well established plants after thoroughly rooting out the weeds and digging in a bit of compost?
One problem I have noted is that if I choose to buy new plants all the companies only start offering them in mid - October when the text books say September is the best month for planting (I wonder why they do this?)

I don't see any reason not to use the existing plants. They should give you a crop next year and the move should enable you to plant again weed free, assuming you have clean soil available. Next year try to root runners as early as possible and these should give a succession for following years.
I find strawberry plants very tolerant of movung, I have even moved plants in flower and still got a worthwhile crop as long as the plants are big enough and healthy. If you can cloche the plants in February not nly will it advance the cropping but also bring forward the production of new replacement plants which will be all that much bigger for the next cropping.First year plants give the best quality fruit, the second and third years give the greatest yield.
Allan

Strawberry plants are just like weeds, they just keep coming with little effort, use your original plants and use the runners for a good crop next year and an even better one the year after

Well I planted thr strawberries today and compromised.I planted several runners from last year and bought a few early and late fruiting varieties from a nursery.
Originally the mother plants from my runners were a mixture of late, mid and early varieties. Unfortunately when I palnted last years runners I didn't make a note of which variety I took them from! So we will see what happens next year!