Joy and I spent a couple of hours last weekend painting strawberry rocks for the garden!

Let me back up just a bit.

Every year you garden, it’s another chance to try new techniques.

Maybe our produce was decimated last summer. Maybe a dingus named Steph never got around to putting a simple gate on the deer fence. And maybe this year will be better (if said dingus will also remember along with the new door to the garden area… to secure the bottom around that fence so rabbits aren’t just hopping right in like they own the place).

Each year I love that chance to try new things, and this year it’s painting strawberry rocks for the garden.

What I’ve read in those YOU SHOULD DO THIS WITH ALL THAT FREE TIME AROUND YOUR HOUSE Pinterest craft type photos on social media (you know the ones), is when you have baby strawberry plants, you can paint rocks to look like strawberries before the plants are producing actual fruit.

That way, birds will come and try to eat the berries, but they’re not berries.

They’re rocks.

And you just tricked a bunch of birds into trying to eat rocks LOL.

So now I I theory you have these wild birds that don’t like eating rocks, and when your strawberry plants start kicking out real berries the birds won’t eat them.

It’s a pretty interesting idea, and Joy and I love a good craft project.

Painting strawberry rocks is super easy.

Step 1. Paint rocks red. We used acrylic paint, and depending on the style and brand you may need multiple coats. We used 3 coats of red. I did anyway. Joy got bored after 2 coats and went in the other room to watch Teen Titans GO so she was grounded.

Step 2. Add yellow bits for “seeds” and green bits for “that little green part on the end of the strawberry”. We used Posca paint markers for this step, but you can totally just use regular acrylic paint, too. It’s okay, I’ll let you.

Step 3. Seal your artwork somehow. You can use Mod Podge clear coat or something like that as a spray; we used some cheap acrylic varnish I had in the studio. Acrylic varnish won’t make your Posca pens smear, either, which is a thing I discovered recently!

Then you put ‘em in your garden.

Try to be sneaky about it so the birds don’t see you trying to dupe them. I’ve heard they carry switchblades.

These strawberries aren’t as photogenic because I planted em in the ground and there’s varying stages of broken down compost around em. I have a gardening experiment going to see if they do better in pots or in the ground.

So enjoy eating rocks ya stoopid birds!

(P.s. I love birds I don’t really think they’re dumb I just like saying things that sound funny please don’t cancel me.)