Who/what is eating my strawberries?

jap200

I just about feel like giving up with my strawberry plants. Every year I seem to put in loads of effort which comes to nothing thanks mainly to slugs and birds.

This year I planted the plants through holes in a membrane and then used hoops and netting to keep off the birds. I had a really lovely crop of big green strawberries on the way and thought that finally I had mastered it, but today they have almost all disappeared! It looks like they have been snipped off the stalks and taken away. There is no way that birds can have got in and I can't see any sign of slugs or snails (and have beer traps for those anyway).

Oddly, the same has happened to some that I had in pots in the greenhouse and had put on the floor (on the path) as I had run out of room on my bench, but not to the 2 plants left on the bench. My grand total of strawberries is 2 so far!

They weren't ripe so I it wouldn't be my children. All I can think of is that it might be mice or other rodents. Any ideas?

Tiglath

Squirrels maybe? We gave up growing them because they'd nick every single one.

jap200

Tiglath wrote: »

Squirrels maybe? We gave up growing them because they'd nick every single one.

Good suggestion, but definitely not squirrels in our case as we don't have any here and in any case I have the netting pegged to the ground all the way round. I can't even see where small rodents could get in.

Farway

Mice, they can squeeze through a hole the diameter of a pencil

realfood

I would guess mice or voles, especially as the plants on the bench were left alone.
I grow most of my strawberries in boxes about 60 cm above ground to defeat slugs, snails, mice, voles, and covered with netting.

jap200

realfood wrote: »

I would guess mice or voles, especially as the plants on the bench were left alone.
I grow most of my strawberries in boxes about 60 cm above ground to defeat slugs, snails, mice, voles, and covered with netting.

Yes I think that is what I am going to have to do. Either that or just give up and buy them in my local farm shop. Honestly, there just seem to be some crops that are not worth the effort and expense of growing them!

greyteam1959

Mice........eaten about 20 red cabbage plants in my garden !!!!!
Set two traps baited with peanut butter & got two large adult mice within 24 hours.
Peanut butter 2 Mice 0…......

Arthog

Thanks for all these good ideas. I am also about to give up on Strawberries! I found handfuls of green ones lying on the ground, nipped off the stalks. The plants are looking healthy apart from the shortage of fruit.
It'd be easy to buy them instead but I've heard alarming details about the chemicals used in polytunnels.
I have a higher raised bed I could use - about 18'' high.
One mistake I made was to buy plants from a bargain company and they are not the type I wanted. Aromel - perpetual fruiting medium-sized fruits, have always done well.
So I'm going to try out your ideas before giving up. Off to the mousetrap shop tomorrow!

jap200

Arthog wrote: »

Thanks for all these good ideas. I am also about to give up on Strawberries! I found handfuls of green ones lying on the ground, nipped off the stalks. The plants are looking healthy apart from the shortage of fruit.
It'd be easy to buy them instead but I've heard alarming details about the chemicals used in polytunnels.
I have a higher raised bed I could use - about 18'' high.
One mistake I made was to buy plants from a bargain company and they are not the type I wanted. Aromel - perpetual fruiting medium-sized fruits, have always done well.
So I'm going to try out your ideas before giving up. Off to the mousetrap shop tomorrow!

Sounds like you have exactly the same problem as me! I'm not going down the mousetrap route though as we live in the Kent countryside and I would be fighting a losing battle. Going to accept defeat this year and put them in pots on a shelf in the greenhouse next year - that will be their last chance - after that it is into the compost heap with them!

greyteam1959

greyteam1959 wrote: »

Mice........eaten about 20 red cabbage plants in my garden !!!!!
Set two traps baited with peanut butter & got two large adult mice within 24 hours.
Peanut butter 2 Mice 0…......

Update.........
Peanut Butter 4 Mice 0
:p

[Deleted User]

Mine are all tabletop or troughs on shelving in the back garden, I think I am giving up next year too. I am getting strawberries but an ok amount, not brilliant. I`ll see what happens through summer and decide by autumn, the watering gets to be difficult too, in hot weather like now. Allotment strawberries were hopeless in the past so none there either and I saw some botrytis on a couple yesterday and I am not intending to fight that if we get much more wet/damp/humid

I`ll just look on it as yet another downsize as I am trying to get rid of `stuff` in and out of the house, has to happen as I get older and anything in the garden has to earn its keep