Monday, May 6, 2013

Strawberry Rocks

Today while out at the garden I noticed the strawberry plants were in full bloom. I can't wait for some nice fresh strawberries. One of the problems with strawberries is birds. We have a lot of birds around and from what I've read they like to peck and eat the strawberries. One of the ways that I have read to prevent this from happening is painting little rocks to look like strawberries.

The idea behind this that the birds will see the rocks as berries and peck them.  The birds will not like this and will eventually not want to touch the actual berries.  I figured we would give this idea a go this year so this was the kids craft project after school today.

Just a side note - The strawberry plant I have was a sad little clearance plant from Lowes last year. I paid all of a whopping fifty cents for it. It actually grew back the first year year I had the plant and we got a few small strawberries from it. It formed shoots and now we have 3 plants, not bad for a fifty cent investment. 

Strawberry Rocks!

Materials:

Some small rocks from around the yard.'
Red, Black and Green Craft Paint
Paint Brushes
Water for washing brushes
News paper or painting surface

1.   Lay rocks on the flattest side on news paper or painting surface.

2.   Paint the tops and sides of rocks with red paint and let dry.


3.  Paint some green where the "tops" of the strawberries would be and let dry.

4.  Take a small sized brush and paint black spots on the red to mimic the seeds of the strawberries. Let dry.

5.  Take the dry rocks and lay them out among the strawberry plants.


Here's my kids strawberries:





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