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I live in the SE Arizona at an elevation of 4,623 feet, the ground is very dry and loose, more like sand than dirt.

I've always failed at trying to grow strawberries from seed, so now I'm trying to grow them by buying them as saplings, then transplanting them, when they're nice and strong,,,, the saplings are already in a bio-degradable wrapping, and after tilling the ground several times, in between each tilling, I rake up any weeds, etc etc, until the ground is near to clear as possible, then I till in quite a bit of soil, followed by manure, making sure it's well mixed, then I till for a final time, with the tiller blades creating mounts and irrigation channels, to which I then transplant the saplings to the mounts and gave a moderate amount of water given just before sunrise, then again just after sundown,,,,, whether this is the right procedure I have no idea, but the saplings were transplanted 3 days ago, and now they are all dead or dying, leaves all flopped to the ground and shriveled, I was told this could be a result of transplant shock, and I would have to just keep watering and wait for the roots to take hold, which could take up to another season before they start growing, or they are literally dead, because they didn't survive the transplanting, the other plant saplings (tomato's, zucchini, ans squash) are doing great, nice and strong, but it's the strawberries.

I also found this out,,,,last year, when I planted the same, it was just at the start of monsoon, the strawberries didn't survive, and I thought nothing was going to grew, but as soon as the monsoon rains started, everything except the strawberries suddenly shot up like they were on steroids, and about 2 months later I had a good yield of heirloom tomato's and the zucchini? well, that too shot up and the leaves looked like huge palm leaves, and yielded some great zucchini. Could it be that well water is too acidic and doesn't have the nutrients that rain water carries?

I'm sorry, I usually don't correct people's language, spelling, etc. Perhaps English is your second language, in which case, you are doing great. But I just have to let you know, saplings are young trees. The word you are looking for is seedlings, for young plants sprouted from seeds or transplants for the strawberry plants you buy.

Re the strawberries. It would be hard for anyone to suggest whether your strawberries are actually dead or in temporary transplant shock, without seeing pictures. You can upload pictures to here from your computer.

A couple thoughts - that seems like an awful lot of tilling, especially for sandy soil. And I have to wonder about that "biodegradable wrapping." So you just planted them as is, with the wrapping? I have never heard of such a thing, unless you are talking about peat pots. And I know they say you can plant things in peat pots as is, just put the pot in the ground. I can testify from experience, that does NOT work. Peat pots are biodegradable in the long term, but not in time to do the plants any good. You need to peel them off, before putting the plant in the ground. It would work even less well in your very well tilled sandy soil - very fast draining, moisture does not stay around long and the moisture is what would help break the peat pots down. Dry peat pots will last forever.

If your wrapping is something else, similar considerations may apply. I would dig one of your plants up and see if the wrapping is still there. Unless it has already biodegraded and disappeared, I would dig all the plants up and get rid of the wrapping.

English is my first language, but as I'm not a seasoned gardener, I'm not familiar with all the terminology used.

Anyway, this is one of the strawberry plants that's either dead or in shock.

I think these plants probably didn't have much of a root system -- bareroot field grown strawberry plants come with roots that are avg. 4-6" long. I've been yanking out extra strawberry plants, then deciding to keep them after all -- which means most of them have pitiful roots

Here are mine even after several days. I have been needing to water every day and covered one bed with a floating cover to shade and protect them at least a little bit. -- I should have taken a picture but there are a couple of plants that lost most of their leaves due to rough handling/yanking, and they look better than these. I think the leaf surface transpiration is causing them to lose too much moisture and dry out.

...I have to admit I have tons of extra plants so I'm not taking extra care of them.nif they don't make it, I'll just go thin out and get more plants, and maybe dig theme a little more carefully this time, You can see one bed in the above photo collage that has been taken over by wild strawberries. They seem to have decided they didn't like the one bed they had been growing in for over 10 years -- probably because I don't water that bed very often and let it get weedy -- and are in the process of mass migration. LOL

The one photo with red berries and a quart size container which I use to cover the berries to hide them from the birds in this early stage (netting to cover the entire area will be needed soon) is to show how big the leaves can get.

I live in central AZ at around 5000' and my garden does best as well when the monsoons start. (providing there is a monsoon) Some years are pretty dry.

I'm not sure where you are in SE AZ, but there are a lot of caliche beds down that way, I would guess your well water is alkaline, not acidic, but there could be exceptions. My well water is basic up here. (alkaline)

You might want to check your agricultural zone. Zone 4 seems pretty cold for almost any location in AZ. A few weeks ago some nice person on this garden chat gave me this link to check my Ag zone. Til then, I had no clue as to what it was!

https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/

It's looking pretty dead. You didn't respond about the "biodegradable wrapping " you planted them with . Please tell us more about that .

Good morning everyone,

I might be able to help. Can you tell me what your Ph level is in your soil? I've come across this forum before and decided to ask my mother in law what she thinks while she was visiting Taylor and I this weekend. Strawberries do best in a more acidic soil. If your soil is too alkaline, the strawberries will never make it. Unfortunately, it's far easier to alkalize your soil than it is to make it more acidic. Maybe try adding what your soil needs to make it more acidic? As soon as I find out more I'll be back with what I find out.