Cottage Farm Strawberries (or the lack of)

I ordered the 3-tier strawberry basket from Cottage Farm via QVC. That was before I knew about Garden Watchdog. I got total of 10 berries from the 3 baskets (25 plants).

I wasn't too thrilled about the result and called Cottage Farm about it. I was told that I wasn't supposed to get many fruit the first year. It is the second year that I should get bigger and more berries.

Does that statement make sense to the experienced gardeners here on the forum?

I don't want to get too upset for no reason. This is, after all, the first time I'd ever tried to plant any fruit. Learned the value of a bird net really quickly. :-)

Thanks.

I have never had much luck with the gimmick devices offered by the speacialty companies. However, I have always gotten my best crop the second year after setting the plants, (Spring setting) The plants require time to established themselves and produce runners. Much better results with June bearing cultivars than everbearers.

Thank you, Farmerdill. As long as they were telling the truth.

I cut off all the runners. That was the right thing to do, right?

The berries I sampled were not excellent. "Titan", I believe the name was. Could you recommend a place to buy good strawberry plants?

Drop .. value of a 'bird' net, 'ey ..
We've got our strawberrries in a couple of raised beds made with rocks .. and the use of any 'bird' net would be futile for us. hee
'Our' birds are too busy with the feeders and the premium seed to worry about gettin' any 'dumb ol' berry .. hee
Our berry theives are our chipmunks! .. LoL .. They usually don't touch them .. until we've indicated that they're 'ready' .. by our starting to pick them!! Then, they raid the bed ... the little scoffers! ...
Occasionally, they'll pick them .. and are so considerate to take a wee little nibble out of a few, and then tote them to the edge of the rock border - - just for us to find!! They generally try to leave us a few, for shortcake and the like !! .. lol ..

I also have rabbits and chipmunks in the neighborhood, Magpye. Though they are not as tricky as your chipmunks.

I use many products to repel the critters and find "Rabbit Scat" being particularly helpful. But I don't want products with long warning label touching anything edible. I choose to have all my edible in containers. All my herbs are in containers. And so are my strawberries. They are in a three-tier hanging baskets. I thought that was the perfect solution to my problem. But then I couldn't find the berries!

So, the second year deal was for real. All right. I can wait. Gardening taught me patience.