we're going to be making a raised strawberry bed now raised beds are good because if you got land that's slightly heavier or remains a bit too moist then by raising the soil up you improve the drainage the soil warms up quicker and of course the strawberries grow better strawberries must not be grown in waterlogged soils they do not like it now the beds are going to be anything from three to four feet apart and in this case I have defined the bed edges by putting two garden lines down now I need to raise up the soil in those beds by taking it from the pathways on either side so going along here I simply cut down the side of the string here like this now we repeat the same procedure a spade spared width from the other line just to make a slit in the soil to make it easier to remove a speed width of soil and put it onto the bed now we've done one side of the bed we need to do exactly the same with the other cutting a strip with the Spade and then it's paired with undoing it again now we've raised up the bed we need to break down the lumps of soil then begin to level them with a rake so we've got the nice even this to the surface of the raised bed so use the back of the fork just to break down the lumps like this and make the job for the rake a little bit easier always we aiming to get the evenness of the bed all to the same level if you can and then finally just rake over slightly to find the finished surface of your bed and then try and get a nice even surface hump of the side of the bed just to give you a defined bed edge and now we're ready to put two more slits in the soil using the Spade and this is to receive the polythene now we've led the polythene over and to stop it blowing away I'm just pushing the polythene into those slit I've made in the soil just to secure it before I finally push the policy and with the help of a spade now we're just taking the edge off where we've taken out the soil for the bed and we just take the corn off it and use that to further secure the polythene down so we're just using the rake to tamp in the soil in position and settle it down to hold the polythene down in a gale so we've reached a stage now where we've got the bed covered with polythene the polythene is dug in on all four sides and we've set out the plants we've marked the positions of the strawberries where they're going to be and I'll slit the polythene to make a cross and now I'm going to take out the soil to receive the plants into the hole there we are that's how I would plant them the neck of the plant just at soil level water will get in around the core of the plant when it rains and of course some growers prefer to put an irrigation tube under the polythene when they form in the bed they can send irrigation water down there once or twice a week with some liquid feed which way you do it is up to you but enjoy growing strawberries you may get a small crop this year but next year is going to be a bumper crop