[viettaclark]

Just got Ken Muir's newsletter and he suggests cloching strawberries now for an early crop.
Has anyone done this and is it worth it? I assume you'd tidy up the plants but would you manure/compost/straw?
I've got 2 perpetual types, Mara de Bois and Flamenco.

[sunshineband]

I have done this a few years ago and after taking all the old brown/dead leaves and bits off covered the plants up with plastic clohes made of old coat hangers and thick poly bags for about six weeks from mid February. Just put black plasric down around the plants with a few slug pellets (wouldn't do that now as I don't use them  -- I did say this was a few years back  )

They did flower early and fruit fine -- took the cloches off at the beginning of April when flowers were obvious so that insects could get to them.

I have had better success with potting up a few plants at the start of Feb and bringing them into the greenhouse. Very clean fruit and just gorgeous in mid April