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Four search queries (among others) that led people to my blog, Tuesday, May 26:
what is eating my strawberries
what is eating my strawberries?
what is eating my strawberrys
what’s eating my strawberries
Bird bitten berry
Trial: Well, I don’t know what is eating your strawberries, but I will update you about mine. I tried the diluted bleach treatment recommended by my county extension office. It damaged the glossy green foliage a bit as you can see in the photos below. I should admit that I wasn’t completely careful about getting an exactly 5% solution as I might have been, and the bleach solution I used might have been as high as 10 or 12% bleach. Also, I allowed my children to squirt the plants, and they were not careful about aiming for the stems (where most of the aphids were hiding).
Bleach damaged foliage
More bleach damaged foliage
Result: The black aphids did not completely disappear, but the infestation’s quick spread was effectively arrested. I think a lot of aphids died, and it gave my plants a little breathing room to work on ripening those berries. Today I chose to apply another treatment (9 or 10 days after the original) because it appeared that the black aphid population was beginning to climb again. While I wouldn’t characterize the diluted bleach solution as magical or amazing, it seemed effective enough to try again in the future. Also, when one of my children popped a ripe berry into her mouth before washing it, I felt very glad that I had not just sprayed those berries with an industrial pesticide.
Unfortunately, we now have a new threat to our strawberries. It appears the birds are pecking our ripe berries! I can’t think of any remedy for this except to pick the berries earlier than we’d like to. Bad birds!
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2 Responses to “Strawberries and Pests: Hot News!”
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Get a cat.
Chicken wire. (You can make a cage/cover the size of the square-foot-box and just lift it off when harvesting.)