[Zippy]

I understand it is good practice to renew your strawberry bed every three years.

Does this mean move it onto a new piece of land every three years (this would avoid build up of disease I guess), or lift the plants and refresh the soil nutrients, or luift the plants and plant new plants?

If it is move the bed onto a new piece of land every three years I would need to incorporate the strawberry bed into my annual rotation, which is possible but more complex.

[joyfull]

I thought you used the new runner plants and removed the old ones 

[Zippy]

Yes but having added some more nutrients in before replanting the runners or completely new bed every three years?

I am moving towards moving the bed every three years to prevent disease build up. It does mean I would be swapping out a portion of the yearly rotation every three years but if I keep a note of what has been where it should be straight forward.

[Trillium]

zippy, you need to adapt to what space you have. Some of my friends have quite large gardens and can simply plant new runners in a different area in alternate years so that the new plants are bearing well  by the time the old ones are lagging.

If you're like me and have limited space, you can simply dig up plants you feel are worth saving as well as runners, refresh the soil by deep weeding, manuring, etc, and then replanting them with better spacing. yes, it is a lot of effort, but for me there's no other alternative. In my case the plants take up substantial space so they're in an area that gets only partial sunlight so I can save limited full sunlight areas for my main food crops like toms, beans, etc.

I don't worry about diseases because strawbs have relatively few problems. I'd move them only if I noticed something specific recurring.

[Zippy]

Thanks Trillium; so it could just be a case of lifting every three years to weed rebuild nutrients and re-plant.

[mumofstig]

Yes, but try to throw away plants that are 3 years old ...you should have enough new plants to replace them with by then. The yield tends to drop off after 3 years.

[Trillium]

Definitely. Select only plants that are still vigorous, particularly runners. Most 3 year old plants are nearing their productivity at the end of that year. You'll get berries in a 4th year plant but not the quantity you got from 2 year old plants.

If in doubt, plant your runners and fill in spots with new plants. It's one of the few fruit where you do have to spend a bit to renew vigour.