Strawberry spring cleaning

We've been basking in warm temperatures this week, our corner of the UK got up to 16!  We don't want to get ahead of ourselves by planting out too early as it will get back down to 2 C later this week, but it was a perfect day to review and renew the strawberry plants.

Here are our strawberry runner plants from last autumn.  It wasn't the best crop as I used our local Essex (heavy clay) soil and we had some variable temperatures when they were supposed to be hardening off.  They spent the winter on the rooftop garden, on my patio table.

Here they are after all the dead leaves and dead plants were removed:   

                                     

In total we have 35 plants that will get planted at the allotment once we've had a little more warm weather.

The plants are getting a little confused with the warm February weather.  Noticeable root growth and baby crown leaves have started.

Here is the total output of dead bits, plus some baby weeds!

This is my main strawberry planter on the rooftop garden.  Since I'm limited in space I had to go vertical, but it does the job.  The primary thing to remember on these type of planters is to directly water the lower pockets as they sometimes miss out if you only water from the top.  It also got a haircut today: