strawberry bed in spring with row cover ready to cover when it freezes

Yesterday I raked out all the old leaves from my strawberry bed and sprinkled some fertilizer (I use yum-yum mix) and a fine layer of compost over the bed. This is the first year I’ve done anything for it in about 3 years and I noticed last year my strawberries were smaller so hopefully this will help.

The patch looks pretty rough and dry, dry dry so I watered heavily for about 1 hour after adding the amendments to give it a good drink. I did water it 2x during the winter but we didn’t get any appreciable snow this year so I hope it rebounds. I’ll also need to put the row cover back on tonight as it is supposed to get down to 29-28°F the next two nights as a few plants are already flowering—the cold will kill them if I don’t cover them.