Strawberries - Who's Been Pinching 'Em?

[Antipodean Bucket Farmer]

Hi, Everybody,

It happened again this morning. One of my strawberry plants had an alllllmost ripe fruit, which would make my morning treat.

I have seven strawberry plants, so they will soon be able to yield more than one ripe fruit at a time.

But... Gone! Again!

In a quick search, I couldn't find any dropped fruits or crumbs. The stem was just broken off right below where the fruit was. This is about the third time this has happened

My current suspect is... Birds(?)

If that is the big danger, perhaps I could hang up some surplus CDs to scare them away(?)

Thanks for suggestions...

[Katra]

Bird netting...

Cheap and effective.

Might be a neighbor too. Get a big dog!!!!

[Ray Drouillard]

Several years ago, I had that problem with my tomatoes. I later caught my neighbor stealing the tomatoes. Some neighbor, eh?

Ray

[Ray Drouillard]

Or, get a good electric fence and space wires about three inches apart above the strawberries. It's not like you have much ground to cover.

Ray

[Loki]

il Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:32:47 -0800, Antipodean Bucket Farmer ha scritto:

Bird netting. We have a strawberry farm here that has netting over a giant paddock. Must be several hectares. Like a giant avary. You may notice blackbirds hop along the ground and dig around a bit. Same with thrushes altho they eat snails more. I can often hear them bashing a snail against the concrete footpath. Birds can murder little seedling too, altho a half cut plastic bottle works ok. Put the slug bait inside too.

[Rogerx]

If it is birds, they are attracted by the red berries (as we are).

Suggesti>il Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:32:47 -0800, Antipodean Bucket Farmer ha

[John Savage]

Or, just space three strands of black cotton thread (thin sewing thread) about 4 inches above each row of plants. The birds don't see the thread and take fright when they bump into it. Keep the threads taut between stick supports pushed into the soil. My Dad used this to keep the sparrows from devastating his lettuce crops, and I reckon it should work for the bigger birds, too.