It's a bit late for this question, but I'm thinking ahead to next year...

Every year, I get a nice crop of strawberries but I also lose many of them to rot wherever they're touching the ground.

I've tried various mulches - pine needles, straw, wood chips - and the results are better than raw earth, but still not that great. Once the mulches get damp (and with the strawberry leaves shading them, they kind of stay that way) they start decomposing and taking the strawberries with them.

The strawberries that do best for me are the ones that have draped over the sides of the raised bed (i.e. not sitting on ground at all), so therefore, I'm thinking I need to find a way to get my strawberry fruits off the ground. Towards that end, I have all kinds of kooky ideas for next year - i.e. running string "nets" between the plants, or laying some wood pieces between rows for the plants to drape the fruit over, etc.

But on the other hand, I don't notice other people doing such elaborate things....

So I guess my real question is: Is this a common problem, and how do most people solve it in their gardens?

If you're using straw mulch, etc., do you not find that some of your berries are still rotting where they sit on the mulch?