Strawberry plant dying, please help!
Sirrith
Posts: 4
Hi everyone, first post here and unfortunately I have a problem 
We recently bought a strawberry plant to grow indoors, and it was doing alright for the first week or so, we watered it once every 3 days until water started draining into the saucer. Then the leaves suddenly started turning yellow near the stem side. It was only one "group" of 3 leaves at first, so we cut those off thinking it might be a disease.
Then we repotted the plant into a bigger pot with soil that was labelled specifically for strawberries. Things just went downhill from there. Turns out the soil was full of tiny aphid-like (can't really identify them I'm afraid, very small, slightly pale brownish/pink, antennae) bugs.
We then tried using chilli/garlic spray to kill them (sort of worked, their numbers went down a bit). But the plant just got worse (this started happening before we sprayed the plant, but I don't know if the spray contributed). The whole plant started drooping down and hugging the soil, and the edges of the leaves started curling up slightly. I've attached a photo to show the state of the plant now. The stems seem to be rotting and the leaves aren't very nice.
Is there any way to save this plant? What went wrong? I don't think it was under watered as the soil was still moist when I poked my finger in, even with the 3 day schedule, and I doubt it was over watered...
Posts
It is possible that when you planted it you put it too deep into the soil.A space should be seen . The photo seems to show the soil almost covering the "stem " You could try to scrape the soil away and check if the stem is rotten. Lots of videos on you tube showing how to plant strawberries at the correct depth.
Wow, thanks all for replying so quickly! I'll brush away some of the soil and stop watering it so much.
I should have mentioned in my first post, I'm living in Hong Kong. Currently the weather here is quite warm, mid-20's and humid. How often would you suggest watering it? Once a week perhaps?
The bugs don't seem to jump, could they still be springtails? I'll try taking a closeup photo of one as soon as possible.
Lastly, and I apologise for asking so many questions, should I cut off the rotting stems, or leave them?
I have a couple of small plants in 10" pots that have grown from runners last year - I watered them the other day for the first time in months because the soil was previously moist every time I checked and the plants looking nice and green.
I have no idea how the ones in the bed are doing, after the mini poly tunnel blew off I didn't think to fleece over them until several frosts had come and gone - oops!
After raking the soil back a bit and stopping the watering I would wait and see how things develop for a few days or maybe a couple of weeks - once there is sign of fresh growth (and strawberries are always keen to put on fresh growth!) carefully pull out or trim off all the bits that are rotting or have clearly died (yellow or brown). Through the summer I find I can remove quite a lot of dead or dying leaves and stems (as long as the crown is healthy) every few weeks and they soon grow more!