[lacewing]

I have a tub of strawberries in my greenhouse, which now have lovely big ripe fruit. I can't work out what is eating them. I have netted the greenhouse door and the air vent to stop birds. There are no trail marks to suggest it could be slugs. Can't think what else could be nibbling my precious fruit.  Do mice like strawberries?

[arugula]

If you're sure it isn't slugs or snails then yes I'd say it is likely to be mice.

[Bernard]

After erecting my new greenhouse on a base of flat stones with small gaps, I had to fill all the gaps with expanding foam to stop mice making free with everything.

[lacewing]

Thanks for the advice folks, think I need to get some mouse traps.

[shokkyy]

Last year the mice took every one of my strawberries long before they turned red, and there was a lot of them. Traps don't do much good for me because i have a large local population and trapping one or two is a drop in the ocean, so a good barrier is the way to go. This year I've built a cage I can drop over the raised bed, from 4mm wire mesh, which is too small for them to squeeze through.

[lacewing]

This is one of the annoying things about allotment gardening. Having to net or cage so many things. Not only does it make the place look untidy but the time it takes  to errect these structures. I often wish I could just go there, plant my crop and that would be it. How do farmers manage?, they don't have nets and cages all over their fields, surley they get the same wild life as we do.
Just felt I had to have a rant about it Perhaps it's the rain getting to me!

[suziet88]

ditto Lacewing.  That's what OH keeps saying to me.

[OpenSourceAgriculture]

Ah, lacewing, have you been to the countryside lately?  It's quite a dead place.  Enormous fields with barely any life on them, and the nearest hedgerow where a mouse might hide is too far away to be a problem.    The average allotment or suburban vegetable garden has much more diversity on it, which is why it is the closest thing you can get to traditional farming, except that because it is so patchy, consisting of tiny plots, and done by so many different people, it is about ten times as much work as traditional farming.   Economies of scale were obvious to farmers long before economists stole the idea.   Growing a field of strawberries is probably no more difficult to protect from vermin than growing a square yard in your back garden, because of the economy of scale.

[sunshineband]

Mice eat our strawberries, as do squirrels, to the point  where I think I might have to grow them in the garden only, as despite nets etc........

[shokkyy]

Yes, I've tried nets in the past too and never had any luck with them. The 4mm wire mesh does work though. They went after my pea seeds this year, ate every one of them. When I resowed I put little tunnels of bent over wire mesh over the top of them, with the edges buried in the soil, and as far as I could tell didn't lose any.

OSA - yes, you're absolutely right. Mice like my garden because there's lots of good hiding places, with a big thick healthy hedgerow all the way round. Owls like it too because there's lots of mice and voles to hunt. Arable farmers ripped all the hedgerows down long ago. Some of the crop fields you see look very dead, with horrible soil and only chemicals to feed the crop, and more chemicals to kill any insects or wildlife with the temerity to approach the crop. That's why I grow my own

[lacewing]

Ah, now I understand.  And can see why we have to work a bit harder to get our chemical free produce.   We also have a thick hedgerow all around our site and a nature reserve just over the back. Must get some of that 4mm wire mesh.