[ex-cavator]

Second season on the pair of plots we've taken over & still a lot of hard work to get them all servicable, got a bit of a plan & hopefully can implement much of it in the coming season - but - what to do with the many strawberries we've inherited?

I guess they've been where they are too long so I want to move some to a fresh bed / discard the rest, but also add some new plants of different varieties (don't know what variety the existing ones are anyway). The area I want to move them to had been pretty much taken over by annual weeds & grasses last year, and had quite a lot of manure left on the top being the remnants of piles that had been left there. Rightly or wrongly we rotavated this area last autumn which mixed in all of the weeds / grass and manure.

Would it be OK to lay down black plastic sheeting on this piece of ground & plant the strawbs through it for the coming season? I'm hoping the little manure (which was good quality, well rotted stuff) already rotavated in will benefit the strawbs, the remaining plant material will rot down beneath the sheeting and give added benefit, and the sheeting will keep the weeds at bay for a season or three until we can do a better job on this piece of ground, allowing us to concentrate our efforts on other parts of the plot.

Or is my plan hopelessly flawed? 

[SUTTY1]

Sounds like a good plan to me
I grow\mine through weed fabric, only problem i find is  that slugs love to lay their eggs under the fabric. Beer traps through spring gets rid off most of them.

[Trillium]

You can only do your best. And since the patch will need some renovating in about 3 years, you'll have time to do a better job of it then.

[daisy1990]

Strawberries produce their best at 3 years old, so be aware that your crops may not be great anyway if you use new plants (ie dont think this is necessarily caused by weeds/poor soil etc)  Pick the smallest but healthy looking plants to move (the bigger ones will be older plants and probably past their best)

[Christine]

Before planting out add bone meal to encourage root growth. During the early part of the season your strawberry plants will need feeding with a general purpose fertliser as they are quite hungry plants. I also give mine a feed after they have finished cropping at the end of August to ensure that they are fit, fed and sturdy for the winter.

[ex-cavator]

Many thanks for all your replies - some very handy tips there