My Friend has an allotment and his strawberries are going missing not only
the ripe ones but the green ones as well
They are been taken of at the stalk and taken away
could it be mice ?.
Has anyone some other explanation for this
RayH

In message , RayH
writes
My Friend has an allotment and his strawberries are going missing not only
the ripe ones but the green ones as well
They are been taken of at the stalk and taken away
could it be mice ?.
Has anyone some other explanation for this
RayH


Mice eat anything at all. However, it may be slugs and snails. You can
see by the trails they leave behind. Many people use beer in a dish to
get rid of them but I have found that only slug pellets do the trick.
(You can get organic ones - I have to rush off now or I would look up
the firm that sells them on the net but they are also on the Barnsdale
Gardens site). HTH
--
June Hughes

Mice and rats eat anything from veggies to plaster board to stay alive.
If you suspect it's a mouse stealing the strawberries then put out a
mouse trap and use peanut butter for bait, mice and rats can't resist
the smell of peanut butter. If the mouse traps are untouched and the
strawberries are still disappearing it could be hungry birds. I lose 90%
of my raspberries to birds. I once bought bird netting to protect my
raspberries but I found some birds had got stuck in the netting, I did
away with the netting.

On 28/6/06 08:15, in article , "RayH"
wrote:

My Friend has an allotment and his strawberries are going missing not only
the ripe ones but the green ones as well
They are been taken of at the stalk and taken away
could it be mice ?.
Has anyone some other explanation for this

I saw a very happy thrush eating strawberries in one of the greenhouses the
other night!
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(email address on website)

"RayH" wrote in message
...
My Friend has an allotment and his strawberries are going missing not only
the ripe ones but the green ones as well
They are been taken of at the stalk and taken away
could it be mice ?.
Has anyone some other explanation for this

Yes, mice eat strawberries, as do many other omnivorous animals commonly
encountered in gardens/allotments, and in my case it's blackbirds and
thrushes which have been the chief culprits this year - including tugging
away at immature fruits and pulling the whole bunch of berries off the
plant.

I suppose it's my fault for encouraging them into my garden, and not putting
up a net to keep them off.

I grow stawberries in a fruit cage in Devon and ripe ones can be nibbled by
woodmice who are mainly seed eaters in the garden.
The removal of whole ripe and UNRIPE berries seems to be more characteristic
of SOME grey squirrels.
When we lived in Cheshire greys would try to get strawberries as they
ripened and after three goes we kept them off by rigorously tied down
nets-which incidently did not entangle birds. Rigorous pinning down was
essential-I saw a squirrel patrol the edges of my strawberry nets until it
found the last 3 inch gap.
A friend living four miles away suffered from grey squirrel(s) who took both
ripe and unripe strawberries and raspberries. There was a large family of
greys in trees 50yards from my allottment and they did not seem to sample
green fruit.
Regards
David T

"BAC" wrote in message
...

"RayH" wrote in message
...
My Friend has an allotment and his strawberries are going missing not
only
the ripe ones but the green ones as well
They are been taken of at the stalk and taken away
could it be mice ?.
Has anyone some other explanation for this

Yes, mice eat strawberries, as do many other omnivorous animals commonly
encountered in gardens/allotments, and in my case it's blackbirds and
thrushes which have been the chief culprits this year - including tugging
away at immature fruits and pulling the whole bunch of berries off the
plant.

I suppose it's my fault for encouraging them into my garden, and not
putting
up a net to keep them off.

Just an addedum to the previous mail from me.
Quite a lot of my berries(c10%) are rotting, the rot starting from small
corky patches near the calyx. I thought the patches were points where a
small slug had tried to penetrate, but it now looks from the pattern of
lesions as if the patches are caused by nibbling mice-they occur on both
ripe and unripe berries.
The strawberries are in a fruit cage no protection from mice, and mice give
some trouble on the neighbouring vegetable plot.
Regards
David T
"david taylor" wrote in message
...
I grow stawberries in a fruit cage in Devon and ripe ones can be nibbled by
woodmice who are mainly seed eaters in the garden.
The removal of whole ripe and UNRIPE berries seems to be more
characteristic of SOME grey squirrels.
When we lived in Cheshire greys would try to get strawberries as they
ripened and after three goes we kept them off by rigorously tied down
nets-which incidently did not entangle birds. Rigorous pinning down was
essential-I saw a squirrel patrol the edges of my strawberry nets until it
found the last 3 inch gap.
A friend living four miles away suffered from grey squirrel(s) who took
both ripe and unripe strawberries and raspberries. There was a large
family of greys in trees 50yards from my allottment and they did not seem
to sample green fruit.
Regards
David T

"BAC" wrote in message
...

"RayH" wrote in message
...
My Friend has an allotment and his strawberries are going missing not
only
the ripe ones but the green ones as well
They are been taken of at the stalk and taken away
could it be mice ?.
Has anyone some other explanation for this

Yes, mice eat strawberries, as do many other omnivorous animals commonly
encountered in gardens/allotments, and in my case it's blackbirds and
thrushes which have been the chief culprits this year - including tugging
away at immature fruits and pulling the whole bunch of berries off the
plant.

I suppose it's my fault for encouraging them into my garden, and not
putting
up a net to keep them off.