Strawberries

estorms · Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:15 am

This year I had about fifty strawberry plants. When I started to see green berries, I put a net over them and weighted the edges down with stones. Something still got in there and ate every berry. They didn't even wait for them to get ripe; they ate every one. What can I do to keep those varmits away from my berries? I suspect chipmunks and squirrils.

jal_ut · Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:37 am

D-con

rainbowgardener · Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:11 am

Put the net over hoops so it isn't touching the strawberries (I use the metal frames that political yard signs come on, they are a perfect size) and the fasten it down securely all around the bottom with earth staples.

mattie g · Thu Sep 20, 2012 6:20 am

I decided at the end of last year that strawberries just simply aren't worth the hassle when every creature in my neighborhood wants to eat them.

estorms · Fri Sep 21, 2012 5:29 pm

I don't understand how the pioneers survived here. The soil is very bad, rocks are abundant, and the critters are hungry. Too bad the deer, rabbits, and rodents don't eat rocks.

GardenRN · Fri Sep 21, 2012 7:32 pm

use a pepper spray. There's one that home depot sells called "Critter Ridder". It has worked quite well for me. They have a granule and a spray. I'd recommend the granules because you don't have to reapply after every rain. Maybe twice a summer. But with the spray you will have to reapply every single time it rains or every week or so. Good luck!

applestar · Fri Sep 21, 2012 9:48 pm

It's true that you have to protect against critters in different ways. If the strawberries are being eaten when red, then I would suspect birds, but green ones under netting may be field mice and chipmunks as you said.

I think one of the ways that I have no green strawberry loss is that they are busy eating something else. How much wildlife food plants are naturally growing or planted around your garden? Is there a constant supply of water?

Netting for birds agains ripe and almost ripe berries and fruits, hot pepper/garlic spray or ground hot pepper powder on foliage and immature fruits that you will not be harvesting for a while, appropriate fence against larger animals.

Also daily presence/patrol -- I have found -- is essential. I seem to almost always lose a crop to the hungry critters if I miss going out in the garden for over 24 hours. I try to walk around all over to "renew your scent" -- I wonder if not as necessary if I had dogs that would handle the ranging all over the perimeter and property?

DoubleDogFarm · Sat Sep 22, 2012 3:54 am

estorms wrote:I don't understand how the pioneers survived here. The soil is very bad, rocks are abundant, and the critters are hungry. Too bad the deer, rabbits, and rodents don't eat rocks.

Pioneers ate deer, rabbit and rodents.

and maybe a few wild strawberries.

Eric

estorms · Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:31 am

Won't pepper spray ruin the berries for me? I do have three or four chipmunks that eat out of my hand. They should be so full of peanuts that they wouldn't want to eat berries; no less green ones. Cyotes have taken care of most of the rabbits. If the bear got under the net, he wouldn't put it back. I also have a water dish on the porch.

GardenRN · Sat Sep 22, 2012 10:44 am

No, if you wash them off before you eat them it'll be fine. and besides, the granules sit on the ground around the plant. It's a respiratory irritant for the squirrels and chipmunks. They start sneezing and having little fits when they smell it. So they stay away. But even the spray doesn't mess with the taste.

jal_ut · Sat Sep 22, 2012 11:08 am

Pioneers ate deer, rabbit and rodents. and maybe a few wild strawberries.

Yep, anything that may have eaten the garden was fair game for the pot. Lots of the wild fruits, leaves, and roots were used also. When there is no store, you make do with what is at hand.

MaryDel · Sat Sep 22, 2012 12:52 pm

I have never had any problem with anything eating my strawberries except borers.

The one exception was a year with a severe spring drought. The local birds ate the berries for the water inside them. I saw about every type of local bird in my patch that year, and caught most of them in the netting I used to protect the remainder of my crop.

rainbowgardener · Sat Sep 22, 2012 10:16 pm

estorms wrote:I don't understand how the pioneers survived here. The soil is very bad, rocks are abundant, and the critters are hungry. Too bad the deer, rabbits, and rodents don't eat rocks.

As people have said, they were hunter/gatherers/ foragers as much as farmers, in a place that was then still heavily forested and rich with game. But also, there's a reason why they kept on moving west!