Hello, and welcome to Gardening with Ben. You'll go to a podcast for
all things green and growing. I'm Ben, your allotment guide and here to
help you cultivate your garden and your passion for plants. Whether you're a seasoned
gardener or just starting out, this podcast is for you. Each episode will
dig into tips, tricks, and techniques to make your garden and allotment thrive
from planting, sewing, and growing. We will share all the tips and
add advice. We will also have regular episodes talking about what we have been
up to on the Allotment. So sit back, grab a brew and enjoy
today's episode. Hey everyone, and welcome back to Gardening with Ben for brand
new episode. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about how to
protect those strawberries from pests. Yes, a very important subject at the moment,
as all the strawberries will be starting to get ripe and get ready for
picking soon. And if you like me, you don't like sharing them with
anyone, especially other people and pests. I like to have them all for
myself. I don't share my strawberries with anyone. But before we start with
that episode, I just want to say, can you all make sure you
check out my YouTube channel as I'm starting to post a lot more videos again
now on there. I've posted about three in the last couple of days.
I did a tour of my allotment in yesterday's video. The sound quality is
not brilliant on that one, but I do apologize. Hopefully I fix the
sound issues in my latest video. So I'm going to be posting more regular
content on the videos. As you know, over the last year, I
took a step back on my social media side of things, and I've brought
back my podcast. Now the podcast is back up and running and we're getting
great views, great listens to and next up is getting my YouTube channel back
up and running, as I want that to be like a main source of
sharing what I've been getting up to down there, videos from the plot,
sharing tips and advice on what I do down at the plot, and yeah,
just sharing bits and bobs with you down there so that you can actually
watch and see what I do. And they're not often long videos to just
short little videos. So if you just check out Gardening with Ben on YouTube,
hit the bell on it as well so that you get notified when your
videos come up. And I hope that you enjoy them, and as always,
please do leave comments on them, as it does help the algorithm push
my videos out and get more people following me. So let's talk about today's
episode. So today's episode is all about how to protect strawberries. Now,
there's many different ways out there tried and tested, and some work, some
don't work, but it's all about trying to protect them as much as possible.
Now, everything loves strawberries, whether it be birds, whether it be
wood lies, whether it be wasps and bees, whether it be mice,
ants, humans, But yeah, everything loves strawberries. And more often than
not, when I've been growing strawberries, when they're turning ripe and you pick
them up and turn them over and it's got a massive hole in it form
a woodlice, what's been eating them? And obviously the birds love them.
And I'm having a few shoes with the birds at the moment. The birds
have eaten all my gooseberries, and yeah, I'm not happy at the moment
with how many goosberries it's eating. I call the not pigeing the blackbird in
action today trying to eat bits and bobs from my goosberry plants. So you've
got to make sure that we do protect and from the birds. So what
I will be doing tomorrow is I will be covering them over with netting.
However, this doesn't stop from slugs. It doesn't stop the wood lies from
eating them. So there's other ways that you can stop certain things from attacking
them. So one of the ways that, obviously it is not a very
good way, is using slug palettes, as obviously people are against that,
but I must. I do use them myself around certain things because I don't
want them getting attacked and eaten. And yeah, also there is another way,
and that is to paint a rock red and paint it like a strawberry.
I don't know how true and if this actually works or not, or
whether it's a successful thing that works, but I've seen it all over the
internet. People share it like mad. And what it's meant to do is
that the red rock on it is meant to out like strawberry. Birds will
come down, they'll peck on it, they'll realize it's not a food,
and they'll learn not to eat the strawberries. How birds learn not to eat
the strawberries, I don't know. But if you've tried it and it works
for you, let me know. I would love to know if it's worked
for you, but I wouldn't go off that alone personally. Obviously, the
netting is the main thing to stop the birds from doing it. Now,
how do you stop insects from eating the fruit? Now, I've seen another
fantastic idea which looks really useful. Successful, can be expensive, but it's
worth it if you want to protect those strawberries, and that is to purchase
wedding favorite bags. Yes, wedding favorite bags. Now, wedding favorite bags
are quite small and there they've got tiny holes in them, so let's see
air through and lets the breathe. So what you're doing, put the clump
of strawberries what they're growing, inside the wedding favor bag and tie it while
they're obviously still growing. This will stop any ant. It will stop the
wood lies from getting in. The only way they get in is through the
gap in the top if you've not tightened it enough. And yeah, it
looks a really successful idea. Like I said, it's obviously expensive, but
once you purchased the wedding favor bags the last three years, the last three
years, and it will be worth it for the good strawberries. So if
you're wanting ultimate protection, I suggest getting some wedding favor bags. I don't
know if I'm going to do it. I might order some. We'll give
it a try, show you how it's done. But yeah, I might
actually try that. I might order some actually straight after this podcast and give
it a try and see what happens if it does protect them or not.
So stay tuned for that, and then I'll do a little video on it.
But there's obviously you can grow strawberries in pots which are off the ground,
which prevent a lot of little animals that crawl around on the ground eating
them. Obviously, they'll still get attacked by birds and stuff, so you
still need to cover them with netting, but it reduces the risk of them
getting to eatn because they're not on the ground. And the only thing with
growing them in pots is that they will dry out a lot faster, so
you'll have to make sure you keep them watered on a regular basis. And
obviously the strawberries run hang over the sides so it's easier to pick as well,
so that is a good option. So yeah, there's quite a few
options out there on how to protect your strawberries from the birds, the insects,
the animals, and let me know if you've got any good methods on
keeping pests away from eating your strawberries. So please do get in touch.
Obviously, you can get in touch with me by my Instagram age and get
in to us there. So if you're not following me on Instagram, do
give me a follow. I'm on Instagram, I go live regularly on TikTok
at night and on my allotment and chatting to people on TikTok, so feel
free to follow me on there. And I hope that you've enjoyed this episode.
It's a little different to usual. Usually I'm talking about what I've been
up to around at the plot, but it's good to share tips and advice
as well, and I know people enjoy that. So if you've enjoyed this
episode, please do give it a like, leave a comment or question in
the podcast, and please feel free to share it to a friend or two
as obviously the more people that listen to it, the more it will get
out there. So until tomorrow's episode, remember keep smiling, keep shining,
and keep gardening with bet everyone. Thank you for joining me on this episode
of Gardening with Ben. I hope you've have found some useful tips and inspiration
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