Hardeng:I am not sure why they would kill off the strawberries each year in your area...unless it is because of soil borne disease like Verticilium wilt???.Strawberries are Perennial plants and here in Southwestern Ontario,Canada farmers mulch the plants for winter protection with straw mulch and then uncover in the spring. I have a couple of large pots of my own that have produced successfully for me for ten or so years. I generally embed the pots in my unused vegetable garden until the spring.This has worked great for me.Good luck.Ross.

I am no expert just trying to remember forty plus years ago when we use to pick strawberries during summer vacation. I think new plants are better fruit producers. After and during fruiting strawberry plants send out runners like crazy and those will be the big producers for next year. I do lasagna composting and I had a nice row of strawberries volunteer along the edge of my lawn. During the summer they sent runners further up into the roses. I didn't beat the bugs to many of the berries but boy were they good. I will leave it all as is because it really is a nice dark green ground cover and I don't have a better idea. If the old bushes don't produce well I bet they will send out runners for the next year that will.

The crop last season was a very good berry. More of the diamond shape and LOTS more flavor than the fan varieties.

In my area, the fields are destroyed to make room for another crop. These guys are farmers trying to make a living, not doing this for a hobby. Makes better sense for them financially to grow different crops for different seasons than to tend one crop all year for just one annual yield. If you pay attention to the fields, you should notice another crop being planted, usually tomatoes, squash or mellons in place of the strawberries - then a return to strawberries for another cycle of growing.

The strawberry fields from my childhood were in poor rocky dirt. Farming there supplemented your wife's income at the chicken plant. A field was planted and the neighbor kids picked strawberries on summer vacation. The fields went down in production each year until they were abandoned or replanted. The land was mostly used for pasture. A good job was a long commute away and my parents made certain we had an education to escape the chicken plant. It was a beautiful place to grow up. Growing things and people adapt to what ever the situation or circumstance. Isn't interesting to read about all these variations?

You live in a completely different part of the country than I do, I'm in the Pacific Northwest just a couple of miles from the Idaho border but I might have a reason for the berries being pulled up.
They very well could have been day neutral strawberries that typically are just allowed to grow for one or two years then replaced. I have four varieties of them (Albion, Seascape, Fern and Tristar) that I first planted last year. An absolutely amazing plant that will produce nice berries right up until the first hard frost, 2 weeks ago here. I snacked on them and gave them away all summer and fall. Sakuma Brothers and Indiana Berry carry them and have plant descriptions.
Gary

Here in California, where most of the commercial strawberries are grown, they are picked all summer, sometimes into December. They are also planted along the coast where the summers are not hot, in fact the very next field may be growing head lettuce all summer. I bet the climate is the reason only June bearing strawberries are grown where you live. Al

We lived in the Ozarks, zone 6. It's a plato that is eroding away. It's very hilly and the hills are all the same height. Good dirt is on top of the hill or in the creek bottom with lots of rocky soil in-between. It's jungle green and the night sings in the summer.

It's just too hot to keep them over the summer here in Florida. The extention service says the high quality strawberry plants from Canada that the farmers grow are best planted new in October each year. I got some bare root strawberries from Plant City - the Parksdale Farm Market - because I don't buy enough to order them from Canada, too expensive. They get the exact ones the local farmers are planting. This year I got Camerosa. They are all doing fine!

Here is a link that might be useful: Parksdale Farm Market