Strawberry leaves Cut back or not.

[littlemoney]

My strawberry plants finished fruiting about a month ago. Previous years I have removed all the leaves and straw immediately after fruiting. This year I was only able to collect up the straw. Looking at the plants now they have runners and new and old leaves. Should I just leave all the leaves for this year or remove all leaves, old and new and hope more will grow.

Reading the strawberry guide I see I should feed them now and keep the soil moist. I can put down growmore but not much chance of keeping the damp in this weather.

[burnie]

I just thinned out the leaves whilst my strawbs are just starting to fruit, my Dad always did this to get the sun on the fruit(I do this on the tomatoes as well). So when the fruiting has finished I usually just let the leaves that are left(probably around 50%) die back and remove them in the spring when I feed the bed for the new season.

[burnie]

Now the sun can get at them, well it will when the clouds go away