The Battle for Strawberries

Spring started off with a bounty of strawberries.  I had about 3 1/2 lbs of oh so yummy strawberries.  I even had enough to make strawberry sauce for an angel food cake.  Life was good.

Then the strawberries started disappearing.  First it was the ripe ones.  Then even the green ones were pulled off and often abandoned.

A war had begun.

I assumed my enemy was the squirrels.  They run along the back fence and hop into the garden.  I have definitely caught them in the strawberry patch before.  My strategy was to build a squirrel proof cage so I could have delicious strawberries again!

I bought 1 inch plastic hexagon netting and used rebar and plastic piping to make the structure (this is what I use for my cold frames, so I had it available).  With a bit of cutting and zip ties to hold the pieces together, I had my squirrel exclosure:

I anchored the edges with retaining wall bricks and prepared to have tasty strawberries again.

 

I would love to say this story has a happy ending- the war was over and I won and celebrated by eating lots of strawberries.  Sadly that is not what happened.  There was a ripening strawberry in the center of the cage:

I watched and waited for the strawberry to ripen and one morning it almost looked ready.  By the afternoon it was gone!  Vanished! 

The war continues.  Perhaps my enemy was not the squirrels and is a vole living under my strawberry bed.  I now have a mysterious enemy, which is making the battle for strawberries difficult!