Disproportionate response

[classic33]

View attachment 405866

Nothing can stop a determined squirrel...

Against wire, no chance.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

I've got no problem with squirrels eating my strawberries, the slugs do it instead!

 

[classic33]

I've got no problem with squirrels eating my strawberries, the slugs do it instead!

Get a hedgehog to stop the slugs.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Get a hedgehog to stop the slugs.

One can't just "get" a hedgehog, I wish some would live in my garden.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

Strawberries are indeed a lot of effort and I've given up with them. Blackberries on the other hand I go to great lengths to get a good crop.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

One can't just "get" a hedgehog, I wish some would live in my garden.

Blessed are those who have a hedgehog in their garden. In my previous house I had one, but it drowned in my neighbour's pond. I was quite tearful when I found out. Not had one for probably ten years.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

View attachment 405866

Nothing can stop a determined squirrel...

Give me your strawberries or I will cut your nuts off and bury them.

 

[srw]

£20 for timber, £30 for chicken wire. Strikes me we could by an awful lot of strawberries from Tescburys for £50...

And - what - £40 at minimum wage for your labour?

Leaving aside the fact that strawberries, whether from Sainstrose or a garden, are fit only for the compost heap, if you look after that cage it will have a useful life of quite a lot of years. So the bargain isn't quite as bad as you make it sound.

Now, if you'd planted half a dozen assorted currant and gooseberry bushes you would have had plants which were inherently squirrel-proof and easy to protect with a cane and plastic mesh cage. And which would have cropped much better, and be worth eating. And you'd have had the added benefit of extremely conflicted children - utterly resentful of the free labour they provide in picking and prepping the wretched things but well-trained to go doolally over a decent tart berry pudding for the rest of their lives.

 

[PeteXXX]

@Pat "5mph"

This is 'my' hedgehog, taken last August. Haven't see him/her yet this year though.

 

[swansonj]

And - what - £40 at minimum wage for your labour?

Leaving aside the fact that strawberries, whether from Sainstrose or a garden, are fit only for the compost heap, if you look after that cage it will have a useful life of quite a lot of years. So the bargain isn't quite as bad as you make it sound.

Now, if you'd planted half a dozen assorted currant and gooseberry bushes you would have had plants which were inherently squirrel-proof and easy to protect with a cane and plastic mesh cage. And which would have cropped much better, and be worth eating. And you'd have had the added benefit of extremely conflicted children - utterly resentful of the free labour they provide in picking and prepping the wretched things but well-trained to go doolally over a decent tart berry pudding for the rest of their lives.

Our blackcurrants, redcurrants and gooseberries (along with the raspberries) are in a separate walk-in fruit cage.

And part of the design was indeed to have minimal cuts to the chicken wire so that it will be maximally reusable.

 

[fossyant]

That won't stop the slugs !

 

[Pat "5mph"]

That won't stop the slugs !

Keep up at the back!

 

[Bazzer]

I've got no problem with squirrels eating my strawberries, the slugs do it instead!

We had had some success with Nemaslug. The main problem with nematode worms is getting your timing right.

 

[mjr]

Will it stop a honey badger?

It doesn't need to. He's busy at the Tour de Romandie.

 

[swansonj]

Minor thread resurrection to say: Ha! Success! You bastard squirrels will have to think again.