Kitchen Garden Forum

they are pretty much just leaf skeletons now. I am seriously considering binning them all, disinfecting the pots and starting again from scratch. This makes me sad, as I’ve managed to keep these going from my allotment by taking runners every couple of years.

IF you lived round here Retropants it would almost certainly be wood oigeons sneaking in early around 6 am before most humans (apart from Old Herbaceous) are even up. But it could be mice, foxes, squirrels or other birds
. Very dispiriting though. I sense you feel it,s a more local problem in which case scrapping them and starting from scratch might be the best answer if maybe old compost or other elements hae just weakened the plants so much the fruits have just died and shrivelled away. On blowing up the image it rwther looks as if some small insects have been busily gnawing at the leaves. Any signs of any ants nests in the pots?

It doesn't look like slugs or vine weevils (I think the plant would have died if was the grubs and adults nibble the edges) so I think it is some sort of caterpillar but I'm surprised you haven't found anything. The crowns still look intact so I would try cutting all the leaves off, scrape off the top surface of the compost, top dress with fresh compost with a bit of extra food and see what happens when fresh leaves appear.

Thanks Geoff and Primrose. I’ve investigated further and it seems like it is strawberry saw fly eating the leaves. I may have to bin them all, as they pupate in the compost. *sigh*

I may have mislead with the post title, it’s the leaves being eaten.

Ah that explains. I misunderstood and thought it was the berries being eaten. If you really want to save the plants for sentimental reasons as they originated from your allotment , it would involve a lot of "faff" but could you trim the plants, dig them out temporarily and keep in water and microwave or heat the compost in a microwave or oven to a temperature when all the bugs in the soil would be killed?

For practical reasons you could only ever do this on a very small scale. I tried it once many years ago with the compost in a potted house plant pot whixh became infested with some tiny mites of some kind. It did actually work but probably not really a larger scale practical solution.

I don't know whether there some suitable insecticide liquid which would kill off the bugs in the soil. Probably cheaper to buy new plants than the cost of a bottle of whatever but you,d need to be careful disposing of the compost to avoid spreading the problem to somewhere else in your garden.

Now sure how you,d do this. I,d probaby give it a good soaking with a dose of whatever household disinfectant i had to hand and then let the weather do its healing work but am sure somebody on here will have a more scientific solution !!

I was amused to see a post elsewhere the other day by a novice strawberry grower who claimed she had deadheaded all her plants of dying flowers and wondered why no fruits were appearing.

Oops!