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Gardening

holes in strawberry leaves

(4 Posts)
craftyone Sun 09-Aug-20 18:47:15

I wish I had dealt with this when I first saw the holes, they are now in every strawberry container. I actually saw a tiny green caterpillar today, slugs have not caused the holes, the holes are caused by the strawberry tortrix moth

The plants are very well, fed and watered little and often. Strawberries are being produced right now. The only ammunition at my disposal is grazers, which is only calcium chloride and safe so I have belatedly sorayed the leaves. It will not kill the caterpillars but will help the plants withstand attack

Those moths are tiny and bumble bees are bigger, bumble bees are fertilising my strawberries so covering them in future will be no good

Anyone else got these holes?

BlueBelle Sun 09-Aug-20 20:14:37

Where abouts are you my strawberries were in full flow nearly a month ago I can’t help about the holes I m afraid I just wondered what part of the world you were in as they are so much later and I didn’t realise any strawberries were still around
It was a really good year for strawberries I had loads

ladymuck Sun 09-Aug-20 21:12:41

I've eaten all my strawberries....planting the runners now. Mine were got at by slugs...but haven't seen any caterpillars. Birds enjoy strawberries , and they will eat caterpillars too. A natural predator is better than chemical warfare.

craftyone Mon 17-Aug-20 20:44:00

The caterpillars are very tiny and green, hardly noticeable, except for the damage. I have cleaned all the strawberry areas up, removed old and dead leaves etc and given each plant a good feed of tomato feed with seaweed. I disturbed a moth while doing that