My strawberry plants are not very big or dark green. I presume that it is too late for this year, but what can I do for the future? The plants are three years old. I am in Ohio, on Lake Erie.

Did your plants grow runners? Strawberry plants are usually pulled after the second season but the baby strawberry plants growing from runners increase and replace the older plants. I would pull them up and start with new plants next year.

Well, maybe you should start over and maybe not. Let's not be too hasty. Lucy is right that they mostly just live for 3 years and they constantly replace themselves with babies but they could possibly still be revived and flourish.

I planted my 3 strawberry beds about this time 3 years ago. 6 plants in each bed. By late fall that year each of my beds were full of dozens of plants. They can grow like crazy all summer long.

So why not give us some more information like....
What variety of plants are they?
What is the soil like?
How often do you water?
What do You think their problem might be?
What kind of fertilizer do you use and when?

I'm a typial gardener. I don't give up on a plant until it is dead as a doornail? What is a doornail anyway?
And some pictures would be very helpful1

My patch is about 200x10 yards. The soil changes from sandy to loam. There are 3 varieties, early, mid, late. I did not thin after last year harvest, except rototilling between rows. I applied about 75# 8-32-16 this spring, when they just started to emerge. I tried to add picture/video.

You can only upload photos, not videos.
Use the upload option below posting box.

Wow, that's a lot of strawberries! There are still a lot of unanswered questions, many I haven't even gotten to yet with many variables so my suggestions now are sorely limited. And I'll just say from experience that it sounds like your fertilizer regiment is way off. Usually stunted, pale plants could use a nice helping of nitrogen to begin with and that's a whole lot of phosphorous. But it means your strawberries can still make a great comeback!

Since you have a lot invested in your berries I suggest that you step up your game. First, you should contact your local extension office for more info about growing berries in your area and get a soil test. The soil test will give you a boatload of information.

Since I started growing berries I have mostly been following the advice on these 2 websites. It has paid off well for me.

https://strawberryplants.org/g...
https://extension.umn.edu/stra...


Except for the one bit of advice from Strawberryplants.org that gives suggestions for what varieties of berries will grow best in my state, Arizona. They just say that strawberries won't grow well here. Well, I continued to do a lot more research and found 3 varieties that grow really well for me here.... Fort Laramie, Sequoia and Ozark Beauty. They are outstanding. So don't give up without a fight.

My original suggestion stands. With a soil test and help from your extension agents your berries could make a great comeback in a very short amount of time.
Happy gardening.