Potatoes or Beans? Decisions decisions...

My strawberry raised bed has had 4 seasons and I think it's probably anno domini. I've now made a new raised strawberry bed from last year's runners. The plants left in the 4 year old bed are still looking rather decent, so if I can stretch them into producing a (albeit a smaller) harvest, maybe it'll be worth it? I'm planning to grow a crop of either potatoes (Maris Piper) or bush French beans amongst the plants? Or should I just yank them unceremoniously out and plant the beans?

Just wondering what the expert gardeners here think? I do hate waste, and every strawberry is a bonus, but obviously the veg is important. I also struggle for space.

The bed has been fed with fish blood and bone meal twice a year, it's also had a lot of fresh compost over the years so the soil is not depleted as far as I'm aware.

 

I think that would be overcrowding both plants. If you want to keep some of the old strawberries to keep up the harvest until the new ones start producing well, you could thin them out to make more room for pots/beans perhaps.

Otherwise I would suggest that either the pots or the beans will shade out the strawbs so you won't get much of a harvest.

Additionally if you think about the cost of strawbs in the shops versus potatoes, strawbs in my opinion win hands down.

 

You could do a early potato variety without delay, allow 14 weeks,harvest /replace with presow fremch &crop to autumm.
Maris piper are maimcrop, usually too cheap to justify the time/space .
All good strawws could do a year placed elsewhere.

 

I used to have a bed with asparagus and strawberries - the strawberries were in the dips between the asparagus rows. It worked for years.