How do I keep my strawberries from getting eaten?
I have some strawberry plants where only one side is against a low wall,best for me, and every year when the berries start to ripen they end up getting eaten before I have a chance to pick them
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If these are eaten by birds or fowl you can go for a bird feeder as an alternative to On-Patio Growth of Berries in pots.
If it is rodents, rabbits and small game, you can get a solar powered pest repellent at Amazon or Ebay, for $50 or less.
If you want, you can also boil a quart of pepper spray to spray at your borders:
Red pepper 4 oz.
Water 26 oz.
Mace 4 tablespoons
Hi Andrea. I had the same problem. I put deer netting all around and on top of them. It did work but then was a pain to pick them. Good Luck!
Seldom as effectively as with the mace, because for reasons unknown to me, rabbits, etc seem to grow immune to the red pepper, to an extent you need to keep increasing the red pepper or reducing the water.
When you add mace, this immunity less builds up.
Plus, you can spray this on any home intruders. ;)
Very limitedly, any fowl and animals if they smell the same thing, develop an ability to 'drown it out', just like we do with our minds when we read a book and listen to a radio in the background.
Mostly any distraction is like that.
So basically if you leave out all of the mace, you end up needing alot more red pepper, over time, as they get used to the scent.
What you can do is mix it up a bit, one batch use 2 tbsp of mace, the next use 1 tbsp, the next use none and rotate in that, to see how it works, it should work same as high dose or concentration mace really, because the main point of even adding the mace is that it is a nuisance not even human felons can ever get used to.
Keep in mind this is a pepper spray. To weaponize it you just need hotter ingredients: Dried Jalapenos work as well as the red pepper. But you can get unbelievably Hot [and Toxic to some people] home grown Jalapenos that when you put even 1 slice of these into 26 oz. Your eyes will water and burn from slicing it. Trust me, once I ate a whole Xtra Hot Jalapeno, on a bet, I swore I had Organ Damage for days. Yeah, I laugh about it now, but boy did that ever need alot of beer to wash it down. Homegrow some of those, near the strawberries and put a few hundred slices around, those pests are not coming back too soon. You might see rodents rubbing their hind in the garden scooting along, but they will get over it. As your primary problem is birds, you may want to cook a Hot Jam to bake with Birdseed [this keeps squirrels out of birdfeeders] or If you know how to bake bread get a recipe for Jalapeno Bread, that you toast and toss for the birds to chew on. The birds won't die, but they should take the hint and certainly won't want that bread much anymore either. There are lots of Natural Repellents. And Sorta like myself, [all you gotta say is 'Eggplant Suprise is Ready, Dave' and I get lost to find a burger and chips], there is stuff the pests just do not like.
I hang mine on shepherd hooks, right by the bird feeders and have never had one strawberry disappear. I have usually at least six plants, two to three bird feeders, three nyjer seed bags, and two suet feeders, all together in one area. The neighborhood that I live in has too many squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits to have something like strawberries in the ground. I also feed the chipmunks and squirrels, I figure if you keep the birds and critters happy, that maybe they will leave the gardens alone.