Jodi:

I want to be nice, and sometimes I try, but you have one plant out of 21 with rotting berries, and you need "help"? If you insist on perfection, you are going to have a hard time with fruitgrowing. Your other plants will be sending out plenty of runners to replace the one you lose, and if you suspect a disease you should remove it now.

You may regret your decision not to pinch off at least half the blossoms from your plants, not that it has anything to do with your blackened berries. You may also find that applying an organic mulch like aspen shavings between the rows provides the ideal environment to hatch out slugs, pillbugs, and strawberry beetles that will eat your strawberries as they become ripe. You would be better off with just the landscape fabric during the fruiting season, unless you don't have any of these ground-dwelling creatures around. Mulch is fine over the winter season if you want to protect the plants and build up the soil, but it should be worked in or removed when the plants start to fruit.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Now Don, when have you ever not been nice? :-) Personally, I've read many of your posts, and I think of you as a godsend when it comes to great advice... and always given freely and gently. Thanks, Dear!

I actually chuckled at your opening sentence. You're right... probably a pretty goofy post on my part. I just like to stay on top of things. And as a newbie to edibles, silly me doesn't want to lose a single darned plant (but yup, I do know better). :-)

We don't have slugs (climate's too dry in summer and cold & snowy in winter) or pillbugs here, but I will get back out this afternoon and dig around under the aspen to see if anything's crawling around in there. If so, I'll remove it (more great advice from Don!). And, I actually do have both some berries and some flower buds on each plant, so I could still pinch all the current flowers I find (would that help at this point?).

Thanks again!
Jodi

Well, good news. No other plants have been affected by anything (which was my initial fear), I didn't find anything crawling around under the mulch, and ... on the question of whether I should still pinch/cut off all current flowers, when no answer was posted here I called and chatted with our extension service master gardener. She said that since I planted in the hill method (sorry, hadn't mentioned that here before) and intended to cut all runners anyway, it would not be necessary to remove any flowers at all; I could let the plants concentrate on both establishing themselves and producing berries even in this first year, as all runners will be removed. I'm thinking in the third year or so I'll go ahead and let some runners go to replace the current plants for the following season.

Oh, and I trimmed off the dying berry/flower stems on the plant I was concerned about, and it actually seems to be bouncing back nicely now! :-)

Thanks again.
Jodi