The summer I had a pet duck, I also had a strawberry garden. It may have been Daddy's garden but I remember it as mine (and siblings, let's allow me that, m'k?). My duck loved strawberries. She'd stick her head and that long neck through the fence and gobble up strawberries as often as she could get away with it. It was kinda funny gross to watch because she swallowed the berries whole and I could see their progress down that long neck. I'm quite fond of the memories of my duck, and also my strawberry garden.
I haven't grown strawberries since then, until this year. Daughter and granddaughter gifted me a strawberry 
pot so I added strawberry plants. But I failed to read up on growing strawberries in containers so I only got a few berries, lost the 1st couple to a squirrel, I think. Only thing I had quickly available to protect the berries was an unused rabbit cage, so that's what the plants sit inside. It worked on squirrels, but I think a bird was able to munch a bit. Now at the end of the growing season, there are a few more berries developing, but I'm more interested in how to properly winter the plants. My big mistake this summer was not cutting off the runner plants. There are a ton of them. I hate tossing thriving plants. instead, I'm going to try to root a bunch before it's too late (anybody local want a few?).
This assumes, of course, that next year, I'll have a better set up for raising strawberries. I have to work on critter proofing. That's one of the 2 big reasons I didn't plant in the ground. The other is not having a raised bed. I've often pictured a strawberry garden in my back yard set up like a 3 tiered wedding cake. I think I'd be better served with a strawberrry tower on my deck. My mouser cat Fiona is now at the older edge of middle 
aged and not quite the hunter she used to be. She likes lounging on the deck though, and generally the only rodents, other than squirrels, that show up on my deck are there because of Fiona. They are not at all interested, let along capable, of eating my berries. My rabbits, however, would 
love to get into a strawberry garden. And they are not afraid of Fiona, which could be a mistake, but in Fi's 8 years living here, she's never once gone after one of my bunnies (wild ones are a different story). If I set up a strawberry tower on the deck, I'll have to factor in squirrels, my rabbits, and birds in the design. Figuring it all out sounds like a good winter project to me.
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