Last Updated on May 16, 2024
Strawberries are delicious, juicy, and nutritious – of course you want to grow them in your garden. However, you’re not the only one who goes crazy for strawberries. It’s incredibly frustrating to spend time and energy to grow precious berries only be stolen and devoured by pests! Luckily, there are several simple, inexpensive (and humane!) ways to defend your garden and protect your strawberry plants from birds.
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14 Best Ways to Protect Strawberry Plants from Birds
Below is a list of most successful methods to protect strawberry plants from birds (but vary in effectiveness). Each of these fit into 1 of these 3 categories:
- Physical Barriers – most effective option but usually more expensive
- Scare Tactics/Decoys – shiny, noisy, moveable objects that startle and frighten, but eventually the birds catch on
- Hospitality – most humane way to deal with pests, but least effective
Note: Admittedly, it’s not just hungry birds that are attracted to our precious strawberry crop. Mammals such as deer, squirrels, rabbits) and insects (snails, slugs, strawberry bud weevils) can also decimate our strawberry fields. Many of the methods below are also effective ways at stopping these pests as well.
1. Netting
Simply drape netting over your strawberry patch to prevent pests from getting at them. How quick is that? Simple yet effective.
However, placing netting directly on the strawberry plants poses a few challenges. First, the strawberries on the outer edges of the plant will still be accessible to the pesky birds, so you’ll still have some losses. Second, plants tend to get caught in the netting so at harvest time, you will find yourself frustratingly fighting with the netting.
2. Cages
The best option (in my opinion) is build a support system to hold netting (or chicken wire) up and over your strawberry crop. A cage can be as simple as holding up netting using stakes driven into the ground, or creating a PVC frame to keep the netting up and away from the plants.
There’s a few ways to DIY your own cage. Here’s ours… How to Build a Simple Strawberry Plant Cage
Don’t want to do the DIY cage route? Here’s some gorgeous options, including pop-up tents, net tunnel and row cover frames, that are the most effective way to stop pests.
3. Plastic Owls
For a more “furrier” decoy option, consider placing a plastic owl above your berry bushes in an obvious location. I haven’t tried this tactic, but if I did, I’d want one with a moving head and light-up eyes. One that would scare my kids AND animals!
Unfortunately, like other scare tactics, these owl decoys need to be moved at frequent intervals. So be mindful of moving them on a weekly basis. This job might be a good family chore. Pass this task around your children to increase their responsibility and lighten your workload, plus inspire a future generation of gardeners.
4. Terror Eyes Balloon
Before I wrote this post, admittedly I have never heard of terror eyes balloon. And after seeing one of these online I completely understand how this would work to protect strawberry beds. Forget the pesky birds, I’m scared of the terror eyes balloon!!
This decoy is a large, inflatable vinyl 3-D balloon painted with bright colors and “fierce” features to mimic natural predators like falcons. It’s lightweight so it moves easily in the wind, adding to the scare factor.
Once inflated, install terror eyes balloon overlooking your berry bushes. Birds who happen to stop in your garden will get a fright thinking this terror eyes balloon is a predator about to swoop down and gobble them up.
Apparently NASA uses terror eyes balloon to keep pesky birds from the space shuttle launch areas. If they work at NASA, these decoys should work in our gardens too, right?
5. Foil Tape
Moving on to a “shiny is scary” idea. Attaching strips of foil tape or Mylar flash tape to your strawberry crop may frighten small animals away.
Simply tie strips of Mylar or foil tape to the bushes, let them shine in the sun and flutter in the breeze, scaring pests.
6. CDs or Aluminum Pie Plates
Similar to the foil tape, CDs and pie plates move in the wind and reflect light in different directions. Tie some string through some old CDs (admit it, you don’t need those Michael Jackson CDs anymore….) or make a hole in the pie plate and hang it on a post near your berry bushes.
7. Decoy Berries
This is a very creative way to ward off critters from your berry bushes. One gardener decided to paint a bunch of rocks to look like strawberries and placed in her garden before her real strawberries ripened. When the predators went for a snack and started pecking at the stones, they got a huge surprise! It confused them so that they didn’t return when the true juicy berries were ripe for the picking.
Luke at MIGardener has a great YouTube tutorial to create your own decoy strawberry rocks.
8. Garden Spinners
Shiny pinwheels reflect light and create movement and noise, a trifecta of scare tactics that will make birds and pests think twice about approaching your juicy berries. Cost of garden spinners can run the gamut – from frugal dollar store to ones specifically designed for scaring pests.
Place pinwheels with reflective materials around your garden so they will easily capture the wind. If they are placed in garden nooks, they won’t spin and do their job!
9. Wind Chimes
Noise, noise, with a side of noise from wind chimes will deter hungry birds and pests from your precious strawberries. Windchimes placed in your garden not only adds a whimsy note, but also provides sounds and movement that deter animals from approaching your berry bushes.
Windchimes can run the gamut on cost, but they don’t have to be expensive to be effective. Recruit your kids with DIY wind chime kits or use things around the house. Personally, I love these DIY ideas from HomeBNC and The Garden Glove.
10. Scarecrows
If you’re super organized (not me) and think ahead (again, not me), you can pick up a scarecrow during the fall in your local garden supply store to use the following year. Or you can easily just make your own scarecrow and place throughout your strawberry fields.
What I especially like about the scarecrow idea is that they add a bit of fun and quirkiness to your garden.
Unfortunately, birds and pests will eventually figure out that your scarecrow isn’t a danger. A few tips:
- Move scarecrow every week
- Add a tie or accessories that will flutter in the breeze for extra scare
- Change scarecrow’s outfit or accessories
11. Pets
Here’s an easy solution – it might be time for Rover to also work for his/her rent. If you have a dog or outdoor cat, let them roam outside to announce their presence. Since your pet isn’t outside all the time, I view this as a supplemental way to protect your strawberry fields.
And be prepared for the consequences. Our beloved dog Dulce – all 90 pounds of her – once jumped up and caught a bird mid-air while near our garden. It was a grisly scene I’d rather not describe….
12. Decoy Food
Dial up the hospitality and setup a decoy food base away from your berry bushes. Encourage hungry birds and small critters to feast elsewhere than your precious strawberries. Hang up bird feeders. Set up a feeding station with sunflower seeds and peanuts.
The concept here? If you give them their own food, maybe they will leave yours alone.
A note of warning though. You might attract even more critters to your yard. Your garden may turn into the neighborhood midnight buffet, with your berries are dessert. So proceed with caution.
13. Overplant
This method to protect strawberry plants from birds embraces the tagline – “if you can’t beat them, then join them”. In other words, you accept that garden pests will get at your berries and merely plant more than you need. They get some, you get some, and everyone moves on.
While this is a very humane way to deal with garden pests in your berries, I struggle a bit with it. I foresee underestimating how much hungry birds and pests will eat. My garden will host a bunch of overweight animals, and I’ll end up empty handed with nothing to harvest.
14. Birdbaths
Research shows that when birds and small pests attack berry bushes, they might not actually be hungry. Instead, they might just be thirsty. And the high-water content in berries quench that thirst.
Placing a birdbath in your yard might shift the animals’ focus away from your berries and to their true desire – water. But as mentioned in the previous two ways, you might end up just attracting more animals to your yard – and right to your berries.
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