Brown leaves in Strawberries in pots

Hi,
I’m a novice to gardening and was given 2 strawberry plants in pots 3 weeks ago by a neighbour who grows them every year and the plant seem to have been growing lovely while I’ve had it as flowers have popped out and bees have buzzed around it. I am concerned as brown leaves have started to appear.
The plants are on my window sill (the first week they had been sitting in a tray of water) and now I water every night. Am I over watering them? Is there another issue?
I have ordered some plant (tomato) food from amazon which is due to arrive tomorrow.
Any basic tips would be appreciated.

 

Looks fine to me.

That's not great ... but they will survive constant-wet for a period of time

Probably. Better to let them dry out a bit between watering. Given size of plant and pot I doubt they need watering every day ...

Are you going to plant them out, or keep them in pots?

 

They will be happiest with a decent depth - say 12" deep. A pot of that size will have room for several plants. Or a Strawberry Tower would work well.

 

Hows about a set up like this?

 

I think they would enjoy a bit more space and soil, so replanting them in a larger pot would be a good idea.
If it was earlier, I would suggest to plant them into two separated pots or anyway distancing them 5 inches or so, to give them more space for the roots.
I might be wrong, but they look like Elsanta.
In which case, they are June bearers. Strong croppers, if the plant is healthy, until the end of June but then no more.

As for tips:
Tomatoes fertilizer will work just fine.
Also, there is some evidence that spraying them with aspirine (not ibuprofen or similar, specifically acid acetylsalicydic, so aspirin) boosts both productivity and resilience to diseases.
If you happen to have uncoated (so they dissolve) aspirin tablets home, you can dissolve one in around 1 litre of water and spray some on your strawberries. Perhaps repeat it once per month, always when the sun is going down, because water droplets will scortch plants' leaves.
This also applies to normal watering, be careful not to wet the leaves, if they are going to be exposed to the sun.

Strawberries have two ways of reproducing. One is through seeds, the other is through runners.
Runners are long tendrils with some leaves at the end. When the tip touches soil, it will sprout roots while still connected to, and fed by, the mother plant. Essentially, the plant creates a little clone of itself.
While your plants are making berries you are better off removing runners with clean scissors.
However, if your plants are June bearers, from July on will not be productive.
So, that is a good time to let them grow runners. You can pin down runners gently on the soil of small pots or even larger ones to avoid transplanting, for instance with a paper clip bent open. Make sure the soil they are resting on is kept moist and that you keep your mother plants sufficiently watered and fed, given they are sustaining the additional baby plants.

Once the baby plants are established with roots, you can clip off the runner, so the mother will not need to sustain it anymore.
If you do this, you might well end up with other 20+ plants by the end of August.
Gardening is often about planning in advance.
Tipically strawberry plants need long months of rooting before becoming truly productive, then they will keep going for another 2 years, after which they run out of steam and produce very little.
If you prepare a tower, hanging baskets or simply pots or tubs over the next months, you can transplant you baby straws from runners in August or September. They will start building a root system until mid november, then the cold will send them hibernating until around April.
While dormant they will need no feeding or watering, and will withstand cold temperatures and even snow.
In April, they will finish the jobs of building a large root system.
And in June 2021 they will shower you with strawberries.

You can always use your tower, baskets or tubs for lettuce, radish or other small and fast crops during the summer, so they will not sit idle in the meanwhile, and then move the strawberries there in August/September. Do not wait too long because the more time they have to grow roots, the more berries you will get in my experience.

Also, they are resistant to cold and do not like overwatering, but drought will kill them fast, particularly when small.
So, keep an eye on that and remember to start checking them next April. It is not unusual for temperatures to go up to 20C or more in Spring, which will dry soil in pots very fast and damage or kill the plants.

Happy growing

 

Thank you so much for your help. The plants have been giving a good amount of berries every few days. A neighbour had told me about the runners but not in as good detail as yourself so I will be sure to do that.

 

@Laxeiro It's great that they are productive already, enjoy it!
Mine have been visited by lovely squirrels.. My guess is that they were quite good, but I'll have to ask the pesky rodents for an opinion, because they left none to try :D