My brother had stumbled onto some clearance netting this winter. I thought we'd use it for strawberries, to keep birds off. It is white, light thin nylon I guess, grid about 1/4", and 4 ft wide. It fits over the row well enough, pinned on one side, over hoops, and weighted on the loose side so it can be lifted easily for access.

It is definitely keeping bugs out as well as birds, since the leaves that are pushing the netting are showing japanese beetles sitting on top and trying to chew from outside.

But that is a problem too, right? Don't they need pollinators? I thought they were self pollinators and it wouldn't matter. Now from reading, they are self pollinating, but a weak pollination without bees helping buzz.

It has cooled off some the last week, I'm seeing lots of flowers, but not many berries. These are first year Seascape, day neutrals.

Suggestions appreciated, first time here for strawberries.

"Although flowers are capable of self-pollinating, each pistil must receive pollination, and studies have shown that self-pollination and wind-blown pollen are often not sufficient to completely pollinate a flower. Only about 60-70% of maximum pollination results from these vectors alone, and open pollination with the aid of insects is necessary for the greatest yield. Insect pollination can also improve strawberry quality and shape, meaning that berries last longer and look fuller!"

Read more at: https://entomology.ces.ncsu.edu/small-f ... on-basics/

The birds don't seem to touch our strawberries, I'm not sure why. If they ever do develop a taste for them then I'll probably use bird netting which has 20x20mm mesh.

When I first put a strawberry patch in here, I had a battle with robins, who really took the bulk of the crop. Tried netting but it was a hassle, because the other big strawberry predator here is slugs. Eventually I gave up.
Then when I built raised beds for garlic, robins came and worked the rows. They perched on the rail and basically seeded strawberries all along the edge of the raised beds, where any runoff from good things added to the bed also feeds the strawberry plants.
They are surprisingly not too jealous of the berries. I do a little weeding occasionally to remove competition, and if the bed is watered they benefit from that. The robins patrol for slugs and others, keeping the berries clean. They let me pick quite a few, honestly I am satisfied with my share, and there's no animosity between us any more.

I am fooling around with some different netting this year, and currently have one of those pop-up tents from Amazon which has 5/8" openings. Although one day I watched a bumblebee hover over a flower below the netting, and decide not to go through, I have seen other ones in there, and of course for the smaller pollinators it's not a problem.

For a while I had a different tent that had very small openings. I hoped the pollinators would fly under the edges, but it didn't seem that was working so I replaced it with the above. I can't be sure that it wasn't just the timing, though. Another thought is not just whether the pollinators can fit through the openings, but they have to be able to see the flowers to want to go through the openings, I presume.

I've got Japanese Beetle problems also, although I'm not sure they aren't coming out of the pots I have the strawberries in, I'm not sure if I ever put any milky spore in them.

Before it got hot there were maybe 2 doz strawberries that I saw come off the row, and most had bird pecks. I picked a few tonight, nothing is being pecked now, but they are not the perfect shaped strawberries they were earlier. Net has been halfway on for a few weeks but well installed just this past week. And now there are lots of flowers. I tuned some today but that is not as easy with the net on as it for tomato flowers on a trellis. The net kept damping the fork before I'd get to the flowers. Plus a lot of bending down.

Maybe elevate the netting so bugs can go under?

It is white netting with white flowers, seeing them might be a problem. There are plenty of bumblebees over there. I think a there's a ground nest under my stake pile. A few years back there was a ground nest in the current strawberry row (was pumpkins with black mulch and they nested under the black mulch, I got stung a couple times). Too bad they are not there this year, that would be convenient. For the pollinating, not the stinging.

I used netting in mine and they self polinated fine. I give them a shake a couple times a week and thats all.

ants love them too.
I would pick a big strawberry with wide eyes only to find the bottom eaten out.
One year I tried cheescloth,but the birds pecked thru anyway leaving it looking like a bloody mess.
I finally gave up.

On a side note,I used to have a can of blossom-set for tomatoes supposedly used on strawberries also,from the 1960's
Never got a chance to try it on covered crops.
A moot point,since you can't buy it anymore.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/a ... 086/335754

slugworth wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 4:09 pm On a side note,I used to have a can of blossom-set for tomatoes supposedly used on strawberries also,from the 1960's
Never got a chance to try it on covered crops.
A moot point,since you can't buy it anymore.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/a ... 086/335754

Yum, I bet that stuff was good for you. I kind of imagine some reports from the 50's about DDT saying "Under the conditions of these experiments no harmful effects from the sprays were noted on either the fruits or the plants." (quoting from the abstract you linked)

If you wonder how the store bought strawberries get as big as they do.

I do want to get the netting up off the strawberries but still haven't managed to do it. There are some, I think there should be more.

I use a black plastic netting with 1/4" holes set in my bed rather like a lean-to. The pollinators don't seem to have a problem getting in there. Sadly, neither do the chipmunks. It does seem to keep the birds out though.

my nephew uses sticks and those plastic pots you buy other plants in on top of the sticks so the net doesn't rip through.

That bed has been doing pretty nicely with the netting on. But rain that ruined the tomato taste also burst/wetted out a lot of strawberries last week. Found a lot of bad ones on Monday.

Sigh. If it's not one thing it's another, right!

That white netting I used last totally shredded and blew to pieces by October. A groundhog made a big hole in it, and then while trying to pick it up to remove, it kept tearing on me. I never saw the label, not that I recall, my brother got it on clearance. But the UV really did that white netting in.

I straw mulched the bed when it got cold, and removed most of that straw a month or so back when it got warm and wet. There are an amazing amount of runners. So I was thinning them out this afternoon. Windy and cold, straight north wind after the rain stopped. But very easy to pull out the crowns. I got two dozen into cups for towers before it got dark, and that was only one side and 5 ft, up to the bucket. I had planted the bare roots in one row right down the middle, last April. It is about 30-35 ft of row. So about 12 times that many at least to thin it out for a start. 360 crowns to be removed just to somewhat thin out the bed? Do people sell fresh crowns? For how much? The bare ones sure cost enough, shipped, and these are perfectly alive.

I have never done strawberries before...I guess this year will be stronger production from that bed. Being on the ground though, just a lot of work to keep weeds down. And to pick. And one time at least they got grass shot onto the row from the mower, that pretty much wrecked any chance of picking anything good after that. The original line of bare roots was down the middle, and I had the drip tape tied down right over them last year. In person I could still see the line, as those crowns have runners both way. I want to leave the originals, but not sure how many more to leave. I seem to have a lot of trouble getting anyone else at the comm garden interested in stuff. I think if we want to keep the bed going we should do another one right next to it and transplant/guide runners to it this year? They are supposed to be day neutrals.

edit Actually I guess we could expand the bed right now, take runners into new beds in shovel transplants and they would take right off...but I just can't be doing it all myself anymore. I've been telling everyone to take some for pots or towers or whatever, but none had been taken yet.