What's eating my strawberries?

[thecornflake]

Something's been eating the leaves on my alpine strawberry plant. Mostly they are caterpillar sized very neat thin rectangular holes in the middle of the leaves, but from what I've read this doesn't sound like caterpillars. No evidence of slugs or snails either.

I'll try and get some pics this evening.

[Millie]

My mums having a nightmare with the fruit at the mo and woodies, beetles and birds are the cuplrits grrrrrr. Sorry, doesnt answer your question, but cant pass up a chance to grrrrrrr alongside you

[thecornflake]

I think they'll survive as it's not that bad, but I'm going to put some netting over them at the weekend and investigate organic slug/snail remedies. Might try the copper tape - I've heard good things about it.

[Andy Hamilton]

Do they have fruit on them? I have found that the leaves get left alone when they start to fruit and then you find a slug sitting inside a strawberry before you have had a chance to eat it. The smaller slugs seem to love strawberries.

[Annpan]

I have a wee question to pop in here. My pot grown strawberries are flowering beautifully but they don't seem to have bees buzzing round them as I would expect (plenty of bees in the garden so that is not the problem) and now as the petals are falling off the wee fruits don't seem to be developing... any ideas??

[thecornflake]

Do they have fruit on them? I have found that the leaves get left alone when they start to fruit and then you find a slug sitting inside a strawberry before you have had a chance to eat it. The smaller slugs seem to love strawberries.

Very small fruits are just appearing. I'll keep a close eye on them.

[thecornflake]

I now have a photo -



Putting the pot on top of another unused one upside down using the lip as a kind of moat seems to have reduced the amount of leaf going missing. However, I'd still be interested in what caused the image above.