There is a dark beast among us. It moves in the shadows, leaving no trail or tracks. My worse fears are coming to life. Something is eating my strawberries! We found the first victims yesterday evening and again this AM, I found two more innocent strawberries left to rot with pieces missing from their young flesh. They will never know the beauty of turning red and bringing joy to my family's plate.
I have a feeling that the culprit is small in size with wings. Oh birds and strawberry growers have been battling it out since the beginning of time. The fresh berry is too much of a temptation for the them to resist.
Now, maybe it's not birds, but it sure doesn't seem reasonable to be anything else. The plants themselves are fine, no bugs, blooms still intact. I thought maybe rabbit, but no tracks and I would think that they would at least be smart enough to take the whole berry. It's not the chickens, they free range in the back yard and only during daylight when we are home.
I'm convinced it's birds. So what is the nature friendly way to handle birds in your strawberry patch? Well all my research says that the best protection from friendly fliers is netting. I guess this problem is so common that there is actual berry netting you can buy for this. Now netting makes sense and will likely be my solution but I also stumbled upon another suggestion.
There is an old gardening trick that is supposed to fool those silly ole birds into thinking strawberries are as hard as rocks. Painting rocks to resemble strawberries and then placing them around your plants at the beginning of the season trains the birds early on that those pretty red blobs are NOT tasty treats. I figure it's worth a shot right?! So I found these instructions for Austin and I to make our own strawberry rocks. We plan to roll in laughter if we get to see one of those pesky birds try to take a bite out of these strawberries. And worse case scenario, they don't work, and we buy netting or it's not birds at all, but we still have fun trying to outwit our feathered friends. http://funfamilycrafts.com/strawberry-rocks/
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