Raised Bed Gardening
This year I will be trying out raised beds, or box gardens and in this case the 4′ x 4′ gardening method. For my alpine strawberries, I made two 2 x 4 beds. You just need any type of untreated, cheap, wood from your local supply store. Two 2 x 6 x 8′ pieces of lumber will make one 4′ x 4′ box. It costs me $4.25 per plank.
The benefit of raised beds is that you can place cardboard or some other medium at the bottom to stop weeds from coming up. The raised bed also helps protect the soil from being stepped on. Stepping on the soil with compact it making it harder on the root system of your plants to spread in a healthy manner. When fertilizing and watering, it is much more efficient this way since you are applying it only to the area of your plants.
In these two beds, I will plant alpine strawberry seeds 3″ apart. Alpine strawberries are a wild strawberry but the berries are about two times larger and the plant is a very prolific producer of berries. Within the first year of planting, you will have berries.
An update: The alpine strawberries are doing great and filled the boxes but I was unable to get a picture.