I realize you did not ask about my garden; but I can't resist. I have a quite a number of different plants in my normal sized yard/garden. I grow fruit trees where there is room and have mulched around trees. In two different places, I planted strawberries in the mulch and they thrive! Last year was the first year and I harvested a couple of gallons. Should be more this year. I also have a raised garden bed about 18 feet long and five feet across, shaped like a kidney. I planted a goji berry bush in each end and six artichoke plants down the center. I will have to winterize the artichokes here in N. VA or they cannot be grown as a perenial. I plan to use the square foot gardening technique between the artichokes and along the edges of the bed. That means that I will plant such plants as letuce and radishes that mature early. Once the artichokes grow large and take over the space between and around the artichokes, the early producers will be mature and harvested. I also have a 10 foot by 20 foot garden space where I plant normal garden plants such as tomatoes, beans, greens, sweet peppers, and eggplant. Around 3/4 of my house is landscaped. Among the landscape plants, such as azeleas (sp), herbs and flowers, I strategically plant tomatoes, egg plant and sweet peppers. I also have bush cherries growing there. Along the back of my house I have a large rock/cement patio with a pergola. I have planted kiwis to run up the pergola. I will attach a picture. I grow hot peppers and figs in pots. So in summary, next year I should harvest a little - peaches, figs, plums, asian pears, persimmons, cherries, strawberries and the garden plants I mentioned. Oh, I have never grown borage.

I grew strawberries for years until it got too much for me to handle. You really need 2 beds one for the stringers and one for the ones you planted the year before. If you leave them to go wild you will have some big plants that produce nothing and weeds growing all through the patch and it will be a tangled mess. It will be hard to pick and the plants won't thrive so you'll have small berries. I would plant them now if you can find some and give them some shade during the heat of the day by putting something on the south side of them. The first year you plant them you won't get berries or very few. In fact they say you should pick off the blossoms the first year. I never did. The plants that were the stringers the year before will give you the most berries. By the time they are in their third year berry production falls off and eventually those plants will not have berries. Unless you want a big crop of berries all at once and then nothing I suggest you try one of the everbearing varities. You will get a good crop but not as much as the June bearing ones. The benefit is that they will continue to produce small crops of berries all summer. This is how I grew mine-- In the fall I cut off the stringers from the mother plants of the second year plants. Then I dug out the roots leaving the stringers in place for the winter and mulched around them. I also mulched the other bed. In the spring I removed the mulch and dug out the stringers with a bit of soil which I placed in a cardboard box until I dug the plot Then I dug holes for the stringers and filled them with water. By the time you go back to the first hole it will have sunk into the ground. I planted the stringers in the prepared holes and mulched the plants Mulching the strawberries keeps the berries off the ground so they won't rot and the moisture around the plants But it has to be removed when the plant starts to send out stringers. The stringers won't be able to root with the mulch there. You can use anything to mulch but I found the long red or white pine needles made the best strawberry mulch. At pick your own farms they use straw. I hope this helps

I had got a good price on a few dozen strawberry pots and decided to do the "Value Added" thing with herbs. Went over pretty well but I'll relate what I found: Avoid fast growing, bolting, plants like dill and cilantro altogether. They have no place in any arrangement and I keep wondering why people even request potted plants from them. Sage, tarragon,and basil are normally too tall for the side pockets. Various colored basils, although annuals, typically compete well with the others if all are pruned regularly. You didn't mention mint, Lavender, sorrel, salad burnet. lemon balm or thyme but they as well as the rosemary, parsley, oregano and chives seem to do OK in the side pockets. Chives, oregano, salad burnet, mint or lemon balm interplanted on tops usually compete well as lower growth. The mint and chives need more regular clipping but the pocket keeps them in check from crowding others. Parsley does better in the pockets because it is too easily crowded out by more aggressive growers on the top. The planters are usually attractive for a season, at most because of mixing annuals and perennials. For me,I think they sold well at a farmers' market although I only priced them to recover prices that individual herbs would sell for. My profit was in selling the 6-8 basil varieties, thyme, oragano, chives, parsley, sorrel, salad burnet, lemon balm(aggressive as mint) and mint from established plantings in our garden. The rosemary,tarragon, sage and lavender needed to be transplanted from potted plants that would have sold either way. Any Terre Cotta pot has watering issues to address but then so do other planters that don't drain well. If they don't have a drain hole make one with a masonary bit in a drill.

I posted a whole thread on this somewhere below! You want to put MINT in your strawberry pot. Just put it in the top section. Mint is invasive so it will find its way to all the other openings and start coming out of them as well before you know it. Plant thyme by itself in a small container. It likes to be cramped. I believe lavender is like this as well. Basil is well suited to both containers and the ground, just keep it very sunny and well watered. You're in the UK, right? When we lived there our landlord had planted right into the ground, in our garden, sage and lemon balm and they did absolutely brilliantly, year after year.