The Strawberry Decoy Hack You Need To Keep Your Plants Safe

Because homegrown strawberries are known for being sweet and juicy, you may decide to grow a strawberry plant in your garden and care for it extensively to help it blossom. Although its blooming will give you a sense of accomplishment, you'll have to wait at least a month before harvesting your homegrown strawberries. While you're patiently counting down the days until you can devour the delicious strawberries, birds could swoop in at the last minute and make away with the fruits of your labor. Fortunately, painting rocks to imitate strawberries could deter birds from stealing the actual fruit.

Mistaking the painted rocks as strawberries, birds will peck at them only to get frustrated and fly away. This strawberry decoy hack should prevent thieving birds from eating all the strawberries in your garden and keep your plants safe. It'll hardly take a few minutes to set everything in motion and is infinitely better than spraying harmful pesticides on your plants to keep birds away. The best part, though? You probably won't have to spend anything on this hack. You can simply repurpose rocks from your garden and use any red craft or acrylic paint you've got at home.

To execute the strawberry decoy hack, gather some rocks from your garden and wash and dry them. Next, lay down a piece of cardboard or some old cloth and place your acrylic or craft red paint, a paintbrush, and a craft varnish on top of it to keep the underlying furniture or floor clean. Once you've all the supplies, begin painting your rocks red. Remember that you'll have to apply a couple of coats of paint on both sides of each rock if you want them to stand the test of time, water, and heat.

After your decoy rocks are painted red, you can add details like white strawberry seeds using a toothpick. You can even add green leaves on top if you want your rocks to mimic the fruit closely. Once the paint is completely dry, apply two coats of craft varnish or one coat of shellac glaze to add some shine and prolong the life of your painted rocks. When you're ready with your DIY strawberry rocks, it's time to scatter them around your strawberry plants to keep birds from attacking your fruit. Bonus tip: try scattering the rocks in your garden as soon as the plants blossom to give the decoys enough time to work their magic.