I have a couple of dozen strawberry plants but no strawberries. I assume that something is eating them before they have a chance to develop, but what? Also I've only seen the starts of a few berries so maybe my plants aren't producing at all. The plants look healthy, they just don't have any berries.
I have a fence around my gardens and bird netting across the top but it's not bird tight, they could walk in if they had a mind to.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
I live in Massachusetts.
Hi,
I have had the same experience with my strawberry garden. After many hours of observance and much to my surprise, I one day found a chipmunk running across the lawn with a strawberry in his mouth. He proceeded to sit within view of where I was and eat the strawberry in front of me. Not long after I witnessed a squirrel doing the same thing.
When your strawberries disappear you immediately think insects or birds. My strawberry garden is also fenced in and netted and somehow the chipmunks and squirrels find a way in to access the strawberries.
Netting with finer and smaller openings will help this problem. Surrounding the garden with plants that chipmunks and squirrels do not like such as natural insect repellant plants helps. These are both good remedies but the reality is you will never totally protect your strawberry garden from these crafty creatures.
Dogs.
Dogs that like to chase and kill squirrels. ;-)
Many types of terriers will do...
I have millions of chipmunks, that could be it. My previous cat kept them under control but he disappeared last year, I suspect that a coyote got him. I don't want to risk the same thing happening to my new cats so I'm keeping them inside which leaves me without a means of limiting the chipmunk population.
You could try a low hotwire...
Does that work with chipmunks? Chipmunks can probably hear ultrasound and at one time electric fences emitted high frequency noise when they were pulsed on, that may have changed with modern systems I don't know. In the
1970s I knew someone who was suckered into touching his electric fence by his dogs. He had put up a wire to keep his dogs in the yard, what he didn't know was that his dogs could hear a buzz from the wire which was inaudible to a human. After his dogs got zapped a couple of times they figured out that the wire made noise when it was live. They then decided to get even with him. He looked out in the yard and saw his dogs licking the wire. Naturally he thought the system was broken so he went out to check it. He grabbed a hold of the wire and got zapped, his dogs then wagged their tails and walked off.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.