The care depends if you have June or Everbearing SB, but if you don't know which type of berry you have it still works to mulch well with compost especially if you have clay. Give them sun, water, & compost along with mulch you will have a thriving patch.

This WSU article will answer your questions. Growing Small Fruits for the Home Garden.
http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/eb1640/eb1640.html#berry

Be patient with your soil & it will improve if you treat it well with compost, compost, compost. Our garden started by piling up materials right on the pit run. Now, 10 years later and probably a ton of Starbuck's coffee grounds + other free amendments from kids' poultry & rabbits, we have some deep, crumbly loam... in places. I've never tilled & some places are deeper than others due to our uneven terrain. It all looks good on top though now!

Best advice we received was from farmer at U-pick who told us to mow the berries after harvest & fertilize, which for us meant use lots of compost + free Starbuck's grounds, shredded leaves in fall, and compost again in spring. Only last year did we purchase granular fertilizer for the SFG we built.

We had the best year ever last year. Funny thing is I forgot what variety I had and treated them like Junebearing because of all the runners & when I looked it up in the old garden journal we started with 2 4" pots of Ozark Beauty everbearing in '02. It shoots lots of runners, so that's why I thought we had Junebearing & were puzzled by why ours were later than most.

I also have deer, so over the years that's been a challenge to keep them from mowing the patch before we get berries. Last year, I put our daughter's mylar grad balloons out there dangling from the cherry tree or rising from the weights & the deer stayed away until after the harvest was complete. So, amazing -- dollar store here for more June balloons!

Hope that helps you out!
Corrine

I planted Tristar strawberries, which I believe are ever-bearing, last year, and I can report on my experience.

My first batch of berries were good-size and I did harvest them. The next batch of berries was significantly smaller, so I talked with a neighbor who also grew berries. She suggested that I cut the runners off the plants for the first year as runners use a lot of the plant's energy. I did this throughout the summer, the berries were subsequently bigger, and I ate them throughout the summer.

This year, the strawberries started producing flowers about three weeks ago, and the plants are already vey good-sized.

Just my personal experience. I'm glad that the plants look great this year, and I'm VERY glad that I was able to enjoy them throughout the summer last year!