Strawberry plants

Hi,

I was just wondering how close you can grow strawberry plants.

I installed a 1.8m x 0.9m (6ft x 3ft), bed this year, and I want it to all be strawberries.  Currently it has 11 - 12 strawberry plants in there.  So I'm kind of wondering how many plants this bed could  take?

I need to sort some netting out for is so the birds don't steal all my strawberries when they ripen - the amount I spend might have to relate in a little way to the yield I can achieve from the bed at it's optimal capacity (I'm making this sound rather scientific, but really in my head it's not that technical!).

Thanks

Hannah

If you read something like the RHS guide to strawberry spacing your bed is probably already overcrowded, but if you look at traditional strawberry planters they are actually growing quite close together.

Commercial growers really pack them in, but possibly only expect the plants to last a year.

Nobbie's suggestion sounds about the right sort of compromise to me. 

My current 11 plants don't take up the whole of the bed, so I was way off the RHS spacing level!  A total of 17 would just about fill the bed if I continue current spacing, so I guess I'll stick to that and see how it goes!

I've only ever grown them in containers before and yields have not been great, looking forward to seeing if I get better yields from them being in the ground.  Don't think I'll be potting up jars of jam from them though!

Some straw is on my shopping list for protecting the fruit is also on my shopping list.

Hannah