I'm starting a garden with my preschool children and would love any advice on how to plant strawberries.

Start with quality plants. You can plant early spring ( as soon as the ground can be worked) or areas below the Mason Dixon line in the fall. I have found they do better on a list. http://extension.missouri.edu/...

The MOST important piece of advice I could give you would be this...MULCH. If you do not, you will have a high production weed patch- I am not kidding. Since I assume you will not be putting in a huge planting, this is an easy thing to do. Even a thick layer of grass clippings is great. Just surround the plants with whatever you choose to mulch with. Even straw (imagine that!). Place your plant roughly one foot apart and you will do fine. Make sure they get a good watering weekly, particularly while they are setting fruit.
Strawberries are easy if weeds are controlled.
Like Dillard says, start with quality plants. I might suggest you skip the garden centers etc. (usually wrong cultivars)- and mail order them. Nourse farms and Simmons Plant farm are both very good places to purchase from. Be sure to know what zone you live in and select accordingly. Nourse has zones listed right next to variety. This is most important if, like me, you are a Southern grower. If you are in the more Northern states, most all do well.
When mail ordered, you will get a bundle of bare root plants- don't freak out- they are tough. Just put them in a pail of water and march out to the garden and start planting. Strawberries are very forgiving of newbies, lol. Make sure you have a MINUMUM of 6 hours of full Sun.
Since you have small kids, you might look into planting a day length neutral variety- they will produce all season if the temperatures are not to high. Helps keep them interested! Perhaps order two bundles...one day length neutral and one a June bearing variety (bundles are always 25 plants). See what type you like better. 50 plants is quite enough for a family of, say, 4. They will produce a lot of runners too...giving you more plants if you desire.
MULCH MULCH MULCH!

I have a Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa 'Chandler') in my greenhouse. It has spread all over and in general they're doing well. I just noticed this mutant strawberry. How does this happen? Could it have been chomped on by an insect while it was forming?

Daniel? @ediblelandscapingsc, have you ever encountered strawberries like mine?

plantmanager said:Daniel? @ediblelandscapingsc, have you ever encountered strawberries like mine?

That particular strawberry probably grew from a fused flower. This happens in tomatoes frequently, and is actually a trait that breeders select to produce some of the more shapely beefsteak tomatoes.

Thank you! That's interesting, and it does remind me of some tomatoes. I guess it should taste fine, so I won't worry about it.

I planted two kinds of strawberries last year in very large pots (15 gallon) sunk in the ground but still four or five inches up. One kind was fair, the other prolific and wonderfully tasty but very tiny. Just enough to eat a few each day. It will be interesting to see what they do this spring. When planted in the ground they seemed to rot faster than I could pick them so figured I would elevate them. Was hoping for enough to make strawberry jam but that won't happen the way they grow. And can't make use of the runners as I just clip them. As I understand it they main plants will die so I guess I need to slip the babies and pot them up for replacements. I kept them wet enough but didn't fertilize?? Should I?