IME - and I am a very experienced gardener and focus on container gardening - that is more marketing hype than not. To begin with, 4 strawberry plants is not going to produce much of a harvest, even with everbearing or day neutral varieties. And a container of that size is simply too small to grow them successfully. Strawberry plants in the ground are often 10-12" across for a decent mature and healthy plant. And they grow by producing runners, which need to be encouraged and grown on to replace the mother plant when it stops bearing, usually after 2-3 seasons.

The metal bucket is a more realistic presentation for a single plant (not 4). At the very least, I would consider a half whiskey barrel an appropriate size for growing multiple strawberries but even better is planting them in the ground.

If you plant them in the ground be prepared for slug damage. Slugs love strawberries.

I have my own strawberry quandary:

I'm in zone 7. I'd like to grow a significant number of strawberries. I have four kids so they can basically eat an infinite amount. ;) I bake a lot a strawberry pie takes 3 pounds.

I have a vegetable garden but it doesn't get as much sun as it should (I used the raised bed the previous owners put in) and my strawberries there were eaten by slugs and I had wild strawberries creeping into the bed. The plants were nearly identical so weeding was really difficult!

We're likely moving in the next few years so I don't want to invest too much money or effort into a setup I can't take with me. Something I could relocate I would be willing to put some $$ in.

I know it's late for planting strawberries. Is it worth planting now? If it's too late, when should I aim to plant?

Suggestions?

I grow 60 plants in pails, they grow very well. The pails are about 1 gallon, filled with a well draining mix, and one plant per pail. Here they are after they were first planted.

Here are the plants a few months later, they are healthy and the berries are large and plentiful.

Any way you plant them, either in the ground or out, you will need a fair number to get enough berries for a family. I fertilize first thing after planting with Dyna Grow, which includes all the micro elements and then not much after that.

If you grow in a pot you will have to take the runners off, they serve no purpose until you want to replace the main plant in a few years, and take too much energy. These are Mara de Bois and they multiply a little differently, they do produce runners but the main plant also produces divisions that are easily separated into new plants with a little wiggling.

Thanks for the Dyna Grow recommendation. I bought some plants yesterday to test out in a handful of different areas. Some in the garden, some in pots. The guy I bought them from recommended fish emulsion but that's really high in N which means greens, not fruit, right?

I'm on the dyna-gro web site now. They have about 87 different formulas! Is this the right one? https://dyna-gro.com/product/liquid-grow-v/