A few weeks ago, just before leaving the plot, I grabbed a few stones and bought them back home where I scrubbed them clean and left them to dry.

Why?

Well, so that I could spray them all over with red gloss paint.

Why?

So that I could then take them back and distribute them through the strawberry bed.

Why oh why?

So that the local bird life think I have some lovely juicy red strawberries, only to discover they are in fact inedible, and decide in future to leave my little patch well alone.

I picked up the idea on Pinterest, but I’ve yet to see whether it really works. Worth a try though. The chicken wire tunnel I usually put over them is such a faff to remove and replace each time I want to weed and/or harvest, I decided to try this instead.