A cheap item that costs just 60p has been praised as the key to stopping birds and insects eating and destroying your strawberry plants this summer. If you are having problems protecting your strawberries, you should try using garden netting bags, @thefrenchiegardener explains. He told his more than 230,000 TikTok followers that the bags would help you grow “beautiful and delicious strawberries”.
The gardener explained that strawberry flowers first need to be pollinated in order to “give birth to a strawberry” and this can be done by hand with a paintbrush. He said that when the flower loses its petals, this means the strawberry is starting to grow.
You can also use the bags with many other fruits and vegetables. The mesh bags are small but can vary in size and have a drawstring so you can secure it to your plants as tight or as loose as you desire.
You can buy them from a range of garden stores and centres as well as online – for instance, Amazon sells 100 for about £9.99.
Before planting your strawberries, you should make sure to weed the site thoroughly first, then improve the soil by digging in two buckets of manure or compost per square metre/yard, the Royal Horticultural Society explains.
Strawberries are usually grown in rows in a bed or patch but also work well as an edging for flower borders and can be grown in containers, too. If they are grown in hanging baskets or window boxes, they are less at risk of soil disease and being damaged by slugs or snails.
You should plant strawberries in mid-spring or early autumn – no later than the first week of September in the north of the UK or the second week in the south, RHS says.
They like fertile, slightly acidic soil which is well-drained and while they can live in some shade, they grow best in full sun.
It is important to remember to keep your strawberry plants free from weeds, fed, and watered.
It is best to avoid wetting the crown of the plant or the fruit when watering, as this can lead to fungal issues like grey mould.
For this reason, it’s more ideal to water in the mornings as, that way, if the plants do get wet they have enough time to dry out.
Other methods for protecting your strawberries from birds include building a bamboo framework over the plants and covering with netting or chicken wire.
This could also work at deterring squirrels from getting access to the fruits.
