Strawberry Thieves

I never wanted to be a detective, have very limited interest in detective stories, even. It’s true that, as a child, I read all the Nancy Drew novels, but it was less because I admired her skills at solving mysteries than that I was extremely interested in her independent and adventurous life, which included a car. I would have been just as enthusiastic if she’d been a teen-age social worker or labor organizer, I daresay.

Nevertheless, I am forced to address the mystery of the missing strawberries. Last Wednesday, I read in the Vancouver paper that the local strawberries would probably start ripening this weekend; they would, said the local farmer, be sweeter (because of the recent hot weather) but smaller (because of the longer and cooler spring). I went to my strawberry beds and, sure enough, all had berries just beginning to suggest that red would be their final color.

I don’t get much from these strawberry beds because someone else gets there first. Maybe four years ago, the entire crop was consumed by the slugs. The next spring, I removed all the grasses and weeds from around the wooden edges of the beds (which are raised) and had Ed cover it with copper mesh which slugs are said not to be willing to cross because it causes a slight electric charge when combined with their propulsive slime.

That summer, which was pretty wet, the strawberries were largely consumed by sow bugs which are attracted to both strawberries and to damp places. The next spring, I carefully lined the raised beds with straw, tucking it gently around each plant so that the berries would be lifted up from any wet surfaces that sow bugs might be attracted to. That summer, there were no slugs and there were no sow bugs eating the berries. Instead, the raccoons ate them.

This spring, the copper mesh was still there (although I didn't do much work on getting the grasses next to it removed), I refreshed the straw manger, and in early June I covered the beds from the top with fine nylon mesh. Thursday evening, there was one berry almost perfectly ripe; Friday morning it was entirely gone and the net near it had been somewhat disturbed. I fastened the net more securely and Friday evening, there were two strawberries almost ready. This morning, they were both half eaten, in the manner of slug dining. But there were several more berries within a hair of being reddish all over, though not really perfectly ripe. I went back this evening before dinner, thinking to get there before the slugs and the raccoons (and it’s just been too dry for the sow bugs), and the two ripest berries had been munched halfway through. We ate the other two for dinner. Perfectly not-quite-ripe strawberries--definitely smaller, definitely not sweeter--but at least in our mouths.

So, at the moment, as near as I can tell, it’s Raccons-1, Slugs-4, and Us-2. That’s not good enough.