How To Stop Birds Eating Strawberries In Pots

What’s a gardener to do? – Rubber snakes and inflatable owls mimic natural predators, but they don’t work for long. Birds soon figure out that these stand-ins never move, so you need to change their position every few days, which can be quite a hassle.

1. Items that do move, like aluminum pie pans or old CDs hung from nearby branches, or Mylar tape fluttering from stakes, blow about and make scary reflections, but don’t tend to work very well.
2. Undoubtedly the most effective way to protect strawberries from birds is to drape the strawberry patch with bird netting, an inexpensive plastic mesh with ¼-inch holes.

Supported on a frame like a floating row cover, or held above the plants by stakes topped with upside-down flower pots, the netting will keep the birds from getting to most of the berries. You can buy bird netting at garden centers or online. Check frequently for any birds that may have gotten underneath the netting and become trapped.

1. They will have had plenty to eat, but will need to fly back to their nests.
2. Tip from a Reader: S.
3. McGraw added this comment about bird netting to our ” Grow a Strawberry Fountain” article: “.Put the bird netting over the entire pot structure, leaving enough room around the edges to keep the birds from pecking through the netting to the strawberries, and secure the bottom of the bird netting with landscape stakes.

Be sure to re-secure the bird netting after each picking.”

How do you keep red birds away?

Things to scare birds away – Fright is another bird deterrent, no matter their motivation for making your property a home. Below is a list of potential solutions:

Flags that move in the wind are the cheapest, most effective ways to scare birds. Predator statues such as lifelike scarecrows, owls, coyotes, snakes or cats that can be moved around every few days. Shiny objects such as old CDs, foil pans or silver reflective tape. Large colorful balls placed in the garden or from trees will look like eyes to birds. Flashing lights. Loud noise, such as a wind chime.

Should you put strawberries in a container?

How to Store Fresh Strawberries I grow a few strawberry plants every year, and the best berries of the season are usually those picked in the yard and eaten as I survey the garden, anticipating a summer of luscious, homegrown crops. Growing strawberries at home is a pleasure I wouldn’t give up, but with “U-Pick-‘Em” fields and the farmers’ market offering the succulent, crimson berry for the next few weeks, the select strawberries from my yard will be overshadowed by gallons and gallons of sourced berries to be cooked into jam, churned into ice cream, served in smoothies and desserts or, best of all, eaten fresh by the fistful.

• Fresh strawberries are an unparalleled spring delight, but all too fleeting.
• Picking more than you can eat this season? Whether you intend to eat them today or six months from now, knowing how to store strawberries will ensure you get the best flavor without losing a single berry to a notoriously short shelf life.

Fresh strawberries can go directly into the refrigerator, but will do just fine on the counter for a couple of days. Remove any bruised or otherwise marred berries and place the rest in a colander or open-weave basket to allow good airflow. Stems should be left intact until the berry is ready to be eaten to protect the mold-prone, wet flesh inside from exposure.

• While it is tempting to wash strawberries as soon as you get them home, resist the urge.
• Strawberries will soak up the water, making them more susceptible to spoilage.
• Even with careful handling, strawberries won’t last longer than a few days without refrigeration.
• Moisture is an enemy of the fresh strawberry.

The inclination may be to store them in airtight containers, but strawberries will rot more quickly when the moisture is trapped inside. Even the plastic containers in which many grocery store strawberries are packed are a bad choice for refrigerator storage.

Instead, immediately pack strawberries loosely in an open container or wide pan lined with paper towels to help wick water away from the delicate berries. Colanders are perfect for strawberry storage, allowing air to circulate freely. Unlike whole berries, once strawberries have been cut or hulled, they should be stored in an airtight container to protect the exposed flesh from mold and bacterial development, significantly reducing shelf life.

Strawberry season only lasts a few weeks, and there’s a reason it’s so hotly anticipated. Fresh strawberries picked just a week ago are already past their prime, but that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to enjoy this year’s haul well beyond the expiration date.

1. Dry-freezing strawberries will retain much of the flavor and some texture for up to six months and can be stored for as long as a year (with some loss of quality).
2. Strawberries canned or frozen in syrup keep some flavor, but will be soft and are best used in baking or stirred into yogurt or oatmeal.
3. Then, of course, there’s strawberry jam.

Freezing comes closest to retaining the qualities of fresh-picked strawberries. Other tactics for long-term storage have their appeal as well, but no preservation method can truly retain the vibrant flavor and firm texture of freshly harvested strawberries.

Can you put wood chips around strawberries?

Wood chip mulch can be used between strawberry plants Q: You have converted me to the doctrine of using wood chip mulch. Is there any reason why I couldn’t use wood chips in my strawberry bed? My wife used to put strawberries in pots, and they never did well.

A: You can use wood chip mulch between strawberries. Apply compost right over the top of the wood chip mulch and water it into the soil when fertilizing. You will have to remove the mulch after two or three years when you pull out the old mature plants and replant with new ones. Plant in mid-August, not in the spring.

This is a mistake many people make. You may have trouble finding plants this time of the year, since most information is focused on spring planting. But strawberries will struggle when temperatures get hot after planting in the spring. Improve the soil 50-50 with compost mixed with the existing soil before planting.

• I would include a starter fertilizer such as 0-45-0 mixed with that soil mix.
• A good quality compost can act as a fertilizer, so don’t be afraid to apply it every three to four months after planting.
• Here’s where I differ from what you might read.
• Plant strawberry plants about 12 inches apart in rows 12 inches apart and remove runners when you see them.

Some people also recommend removing the flowers as well. Planting in rows helps you find the berries later when the plants are full. Plants should not crowd each other. You should see a slight separation between them for good production. Sunlight should hit the plant on all sides.

Select an everbearing type of strawberry rather than a main crop type. Main crop types produce berries only once a year. Older varieties of everbearing types like Fort Laramie, Quinault and Ogallala perform fine here during cool weather. Everbearing types trickle their production throughout the year. This trickling makes them more productive here when the weather is favorable.

They will produce fresh berries for two to three years before the plants need to be replaced. Strawberries will not set fruit very well when the temperature is above 85 F. This makes summer fruit production difficult with June-bearing types of strawberries.

1. Eep plants alive during summer months until the cooler fall months return.
2. Put them under 30 to 40 percent shade cloth draped on 3-foot-tall hoops during the summer months.
3. Lay a frost cover over the top when temperatures are expected to freeze.
4. Water strawberries with in-line drip tubing running the entire length of the raised beds and spaced to 12 inches apart.

Hand watering with the hose is very difficult. Keep soil moist but not wet to prevent root disease problems. Q: When is the best time to stop cutting asparagus here in Las Vegas? I have a bumper crop this year. A: There are a couple of ways to determine when to stop cutting asparagus.

The first way is when the spears start to get thin. If you have thin spears, it is a sign the stored food in the roots is starting to get in short supply. Stop harvesting. Let the tops grow until late December and then cut them to the ground; fertilize with compost to get ready for the next season’s production.

The second way is a calendar method. Cut for about two to three months in early spring, let the ferns grow and cut these ferns to the ground in late December. Fertilize with compost and start the cycle again. By the way, remove the spears from below ground with an asparagus knife, not by snapping off the spears.

An asparagus knife is like the old-fashioned, forked dandelion remover. In a pinch, I use a long knife and push it into the ground, cutting the spear. Snapping the spears leaves a stubble on the soil surface that interferes with next year’s harvest and management. Wash the spears and recut the spears to the proper length for cooking.

Use the bottom parts of the spears, peeled, for asparagus soup. Q: You posted a graph on your blog of inches of water that plants use each day during each month of the year. How many gallons is an inch of water? A: I bet you want to know in minutes. That’s one problem when talking about irrigation.

1. Irrigation clocks measure the volume of water in minutes.
2. We apply water as a depth or in gallons, not minutes.
3. An acre-foot of water is roughly 325,900 gallons.
4. An acre-inch is roughly 1/12 of that, which is 27,158 gallons.
5. One inch of water in a one-cubic-foot container is 7.48/12 = 0.62 gallons.
6. One inch of water applied to pure sand penetrates to a depth of about 20 inches — fine sand, 14 inches deep; fine sandy loam, 10 inches; silt loam, 7 inches; and clay loam, 6 inches.

The amount of water to apply is determined by the depth of its roots. The shallowest rooted plants are lawns, annual flowers and annual vegetables. We assume the depth of their roots is less than a foot. The next deepest-rooted plants are 2- to 4-foot-tall perennials with a rooting depth of 12 to 18 inches.

1. And finally, trees and large shrubs are the deepest with an effective route depth of about 24 inches.
2. Larger plants are given more water but watered less often because their “gas tank” (water held in the soil available to the roots) is much bigger.
3. Plants that are shallow-rooted such as lawns, annual flowers and vegetables are watered more often because their gas tank is much smaller.

It is very important to group these categories of plants (lawns/flowers/vegetables, medium-sized plants, trees and large shrubs) on separate irrigation valves. In this way, they can be watered separately and at different times. Fourth and fifth categories, desert plants and cacti, could also be argued.

Q: I have four grapevine bushes. We had a freeze these past two years. Two of them are doing fine. However, two others have not produced new leaves since last year. Does that mean they are dead? How would I check if they are dead? A: Some grapevines are more tender to winter freezing temperatures than others.

Some of the European wine grapes, or those with wine grapes in their heritage, may possess less tolerance to freezing temperatures. We refer to these grapes as “vinifera” type grapes. Thompson seedless, for instance, and many California table grapes are in this category.

Most of these grapes will not tolerate temperatures much below 20 F. You can expect them to freeze to the ground, while hardier grapes may sail through the winter unharmed. If you don’t live in wine grape-producing areas, I prefer to grow grapes on their own roots rather than grafted onto a rootstock.

If they freeze to the ground, many of them will regrow from basal suckers. If they are grafted on a rootstock, then you might as well throw it out. Cut the top of your grape back, close to the ground. Let it sucker from the base. Select the strongest sucker and re-tie it to a grape stake with nursery tape.

1. Remove the other suckers.
2. If you push its growth hard with water and nitrogen fertilizer, you can re-establish it back on the trellis in one growing season.
3. With some grapes, I have been able to regrow the vine on the trellis and have it set fruit during the first year of establishment.
4. Bob Morris is a horticulture expert and professor emeritus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Visit his blog at xtremehorticulture.blogspot.com. Send questions to [email protected]. : Wood chip mulch can be used between strawberry plants

How do you winterize strawberry containers?

Winterizing Strawberry Plants Protecting strawberry plants from winter’s cold temperatures is vital to ensure a crop of juicy berries next year. Winterizing strawberry plants isn’t difficult or expensive. It’s actually an easy chore on your garden to-do list.

Learn tips for winterizing strawberry plants. By the time fall frosts arrive, strawberry plants have already set buds for next spring’s flowers. Temperatures below 15° F can damage those new buds and diminish your berry crop next year. This is why it’s vital to winterize strawberry plants and protect them from cold winter air.

Another reason to protect plants is that, when soil repeatedly freezes and thaws, it tends to push plants up. This process is called heaving and puts plants at risk in several ways. First, it can expose plant crowns to drying air, freezing air temperatures and hungry critters looking for a winter meal.

• Second, heaving can break roots, allowing them to be lifted completely out of soil.
• Either results in plant damage or death.
• Winterizing strawberry plants helps prevent heaving.
• Winterizing strawberry plants simply involves heaping mulch over plants so they’re not exposed to cold winter air.
• The trick is knowing when to apply the mulch.

You want to cover plants when they’re fully dormant. Cover too soon, and plants may fail to harden off, which means they’ll definitely be damaged by cold air. A too-soon mulch also risks rotting plant crowns. It’s safe to apply winterizing mulch to strawberry plants when the top one-half inch of soil has frozen and daytime temperatures stay consistently in the 20s.

• In mild winter areas, apply mulch once soil temperatures hit 40° F for three days in a row.
• Definitely winterize strawberry plants before temperatures dip below 20° F.
• Precise timing varies depending on region.
• Fine-tune the timing with a call to your local extension office.
• To winterize strawberry plants, heap a loose mulch over plants to a depth of 3 to 5 inches.

Use a material that won’t compact heavily. Good choices include straw, clean hay, bark chips, chopped cornstalks or cobs, evergreen branches or pine straw. Materials like leaves or grass clippings aren’t a good choice because they tend to mat. After mulch settles, it should still provide a 2- to 3-inch depth for best protection.

• Using a frost blanket to winterize strawberry plants is another great choice because it allows light to reach plants, which results in more flower buds being formed.
• The tricky part is that plants experience faster flower development in spring, which means they’ll be at greater risk for cold damage if you fail to protect plants when a late-season frost is predicted.

To winterize strawberry plants in a pyramid, apply mulch 6 to 8 inches deep. Wrap large strawberry pots or barrels with burlap and/or bubble wrap and stuff the top opening with straw 6 to 8 inches deep. Move strawberry jars into an unheated garage for winter.