Every year my stone fruit trees produce a reassuring number of cherries, plums and peaches. But by the time I’m supposed to harvest, 90% of them are gone. It’s like hearing the birds laughing at me. For every perfect strawberry, four have been struck by woodlice before they were ripe. Our fruit is highly susceptible to local wildlife, insects and even sunburn. Here are all the ways you can protect your fruit so it’s there for you when it’s time to harvest.

In order to get fruit, you need pollination. But once that pollination happens and you have unripe fruit on your trees or bushes, you can cover it to protect it. If it is a whole tree, you can cover it with a veil, but for individual fruits you can also use mesh bags that are specifically designed for this purpose. The mesh lets in light, but not insects or birds. I prefer the bags because they are less likely to catch pollinators or birds. I started using the bags on my grapes because I found that they made them much easier to harvest. You just pick the bags away, with the grapes already in them. You can also protect your perfect figs or apples with this method. So far I have been very pleased with the success rate and at the end of the season I wash the bags.

You can make a paste of kaolin (a harmless powder of refined clay) and spray your fruit trees with it. The clay coats the fruit with a harmless layer that deters pests by disguising the fruit. Smart insects that can still find the fruit will become more concerned with cleaning up those clay particles and will eventually give up and leave. The benefits don’t stop there: the kaolin also protects the fruit from sunburn. This method is more labor-intensive, as you have to spray once a week to build up a suitable layer of clay. Because this method can deter the apple maggot, plum moth, codling moth, European apple sawfly, cucumber beetle, oriental fruit moth, crested moth, white apple leafhopper and pear psylla, I am going to try it for the first time next year on the apple and pear trees that are bearing too much fruit to wrap in mesh.

If insects aren’t trying to get at the strawberries from below, birds will try to get at them from above. The birds are easily distracted by strawberry-sized red rocks, painted the same shade of red, scattered around your berry patch. I am amazed every year at how effective this method is with so little effort. Repelling insects, however, is a little more difficult. Woodlice can be repelled with diatomaceous earth (a finely ground plankton) – but even though it is organic, I try to avoid it because it can also harm beneficial insects in the soil. I have turned to raising the berries to solve the problem. Each spring, as soon as the berries start producing runners, I add a generous amount of straw to the berry bed so that the berries will sit on top of the straw when they ripen. I have also started planting most of my berries in vertical planters so that they hang down instead of lying on the ground. These two methods have significantly increased my fruit yields.