Dawn wrote:

Except this year I'd really like to keep the strawberries. Do you think
it is a good idea to try transplanting them? Could I dig them up, do my
thing with the garden and plant them back on the same day?

I'd just want to leave them be. Dig around the patch and plant some of the
plants off the runners in your newly dug garden.

Strawberries are short-lived, they bear most in their first 3-6 (or so)
years, and renewing a plot by taking the first sets of plants off runners
and planting them elsewhere is the usual, over here.

Strawberries like acid soil, don't give them limestone. Compost would
work. Mulch works very well indeed against weeds, if thick enough.

I'm trying to figure out why the strawberries survived but the mint
didn't.

The mint might still come back if you give it enough water. If it was a
real mint, Mentha sp., that is.

Henriette

--
Henriette Kress, AHG * * * * * * * * * * *Helsinki, Finland
Henriette's herbal homepage: http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed