planting into 3-4in of wood chip mulched ground helps control the weeds. when runners come out, sweep away the mulch, place it on the dirt and bury back with a couple inches of mulch the strawberry easily comes through that. the extra runners that don’t touch soil just die off if you put down fresh mulch every spring. the greener it is the better as nothing can grow in it. sounds like alot of work but its a lot easier than dealing with weeds and having to water and fertilize. this way takes care of all that for you. looks good too.
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Same - I’m growing alpine strawberries (Attila) in a patch around two dwarfing peach trees. Both peaches and strawberries are establishing well.
Attila is an alpine strawberry variety that has runners so it’s filling up the bed nicely.
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I use junebearers along my berry rows, by the time the other berries are ready the strawberries are done…and the do well in the woodchip mulch/cant outcompete bushes imo its a win win production and lookswise
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Great discussion. I am experimenting with the following 3 level planting:
Tree - Cherry
Bush- Blueberries (southern high bush)
Groundcover - Strawberries
The blueberry bushes protect the cherry bark from sun damage, and are arranged in a circle, with Emerald to the south, as it is the most vigorous, and snowchaser to the East, since it is the earliest. The deciduous cherry allows winter light for the evergreen blueberries (they are evergreen in San Diego).The strawberries are on the perimeter and will get some light leftover. We will see how it goes. I planted Earliglow because it pushes up the berries high, I am hoping not to lose so many to the sowbugs and earwigs that feed on ripe strawberries.
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I plant strawberries directly in wood chips (that have been sitting +1 year) and they do fine. They will send runners and plant into the wood chips, no need to move the mulch. All the green you see in this picture (accept one spot of dandelion greens that I kept there purposely for a source of food) are strawberries that were planted directly into mulch last spring. There isn’t any dirt for at least 4 inches below the strawberries roots. I never replant my patches with new plants. In the fall, the years that I get around to it, I cover the whole patch with a thin layer of mulch. Spring of the next year, the strong healthy plants push through the mulch, no need to move it. As the mulch breaks down, it feeds the strawberries (along with the green material of the old plants), so I don’t bother with fertilizer. The wood chips hold the right amount of water for the plants too, so I never water. I have patches like this up to 7 years old, all over my property that give us a great harvest each year of sweet juicy berries with very little to no work in them. 
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i use green chips because weeds will still grow on older chips when the seed falls on top. with green chips they won’t but the runners won’t root on top either so i place the runners where i want them on the soil surface then cover them a little and they grow through just fine. can you tell i hate weeding. 
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