A lot of work and expense happens way before we pick our first fruit.
Once the ground has been prepared by adding mulch and plowing, neat long beds of earth are formed to stand up above the ground. As farmers we often say you can tell how good a farmer is by how straight they can run their beds across their whole farm, it takes a lot of skill to get them neat.
Inside the soil of the bed irrigation tubing is run the full length, then plastic is laid over the bed and tucked into the soil to create the growing environment to last the whole season. Holes are systematically punched through the plastic and one runner (our planting matter) is pushed into each hole.
It has been thought that possibly the name strawberry came from the original practice of covering the beds with straw to hold the shape of the bed and keep the berry up off the soil hence Straw - Berry