I have a little 4 foot square strawberry patchlet. Last year somebody (squirrels, raccoons, birds?) ate most of them, and for no reason I understand, half of them turned brown and died. So I got two strawberries.
To double-check whether it's just my black thumb or something else, I bought another 6-pack of the cheapos, and stuck them in the ground this spring. I put a 1/2" hardware cloth screen over them, and when they developed fruit (lo and behold, it lived long enough to see!) the bottoms rotted on the rather goopy soil we have here, so I put down some of the plastic fabric that's sold for tenting citrus, and now only some of it rots. I get about half a dozen strawberries every two or three weeks, mostly about the size of raspberries. They're very tasty, but
not enough for shortcake. I've snacked on them.
Perhaps my thumb isn't the blackness of intergalactic space, but it does seem to be sort of dark gray, regarding strawberries at least.