All my strawberries rot... or are eaten

 Actually, not all of them, but all the regular ones. I grow alpine
strawberries without any problems, though I don't get a great harvest,
more a kind of "pick a few for breakfast" harvest.

Most of my strawberries are in one of those big orange bags, but I've
also grown them in the past directly in the bed and in a terracotta
strawberry pot.

I am very aware that they should probably not still be unripe now, but
with the rubbish summer, and a couple of weeks with little water, I
still have quite a few that are green and I was kind of crossing my
fingers I'd still get a few ripe ones.

They are not resting on the ground, but things still come and nibble,
and if they don't, they rot. I have a lot  of slugs (gah) but it seems
to be every single creepy crawly in the place, and probably birds as
well.

Any suggestions? I am a rather dim and not very green-fingered
gardener, with a teeny tiny back yard with two very small beds (hence
the reason that the strawberries are in a bag, not beds), so keep it
simple, please!

 On Tue, 6 Sep 2011 05:07:14 -0700 (PDT), "katiejanospam@gmail.com"


I don't bother with alpines, just the regular summer fruiting types so
can't comment on the size of your crop. I guess that you know the
"3-year cycle" for strawberry crops.

If you mean strawberry grow bags, then it may be a case that the
watering isn't distributing evenly and/or that you're not feeding them
enough. Strawberries need three things - warmth, sun and regular
watering/feeding.

Are they getting enough sun to ripen them. A couple of weeks with
little water could have set them back a bit depending on when. And you
don't mention feeding. OTOH, some people here still have plants in
flower so there's a chance of late fruits. Yours may still ripen if
you can move them to a sunnier position.

Slugs can, and will, climb. Birds don't usually go for the fruits
until they start to turn red (when you should cover the plants with a
cage or netting which is supported well away from the fruits). I've
never noticed any other little bugs nibbling at mine.  Rotting is
usually down to too little water, too little food and too little sun -
as the fruits don't have what they need to ripen they just give up the
ghost. Waterlogging shouldn't be a problem in a grow bag type of
thing.

As you haven't mentioned leaves dying a lot or any problem with the
plants, I haven't considered the possibility of diseases.

Cheers
Jake
==============================================
Gardening at the dry end (east) of Swansea Bay
in between reading anything by JRR Tolkien.

www.rivendell.org.uk

 On 09/06/2011 03:07 PM, Jake wrote:

Snails too.  Our house appears to the a "Mount Everest" for them,
streams make it to the lower base camps of the ground floor windows, the
more elite climbers group together on the upper floors and when I've had
reason to get up to the gables I've even seen a couple of intrepid
Hillarys and Tenzings on the final slope.

Nothing up there they can't get much further down, so I can only assume
it's "because it's there."

-E

 On 07/09/2011 10:09, Emery Davis wrote:

If you look really closely you will often find that snails and slugs
that go for insane climbing stunts are infected with a nematode that is
trying to complete its lifecycle by getting the snail eaten by a bird or
rodent.

I have once seen a wire mesh fence festooned with infected snails
climbing up to the top and then on each other when they run out of fence.

I have a picture somewhere of a huge slug that reached an upstairs
bedroom window.

Regards,
Martin Brown

 On Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:09:10 +0200, Emery Davis


I think it's because the only way the snails can get away from those
pesky slugs is by climbing higher. I've often noticed that if a plant
is getting stripped, the slugs are chomping away at the bottom and the
snails have moved up to the top.

Cheers
Jake
==============================================
Gardening at the dry end (east) of Swansea Bay
in between reading anything by JRR Tolkien.

www.rivendell.org.uk