Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Where do you live? That plays a lot into it.
Actually, little steel balls are quite effective when dealing with strawberries.
(Actually I do not have an answer for your question, but I suggest you try the “WEEKLY GARDENING THREAD” posted every Friday on FR. Everybody there is very helpful!)
Are they not being polinated?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Obamacare taxed
I planted a bunch of strawberry plants from cuttings when I was a kid. I got strawberries the first year. That was in Southern California in well-mulched soil.
Plants have different fertilizing needs than it does in normal growing phases. When the plant is starting the flowering phase, give it the proper food.
You might consider joining a gardening club. Have your soil tested for mineral deficiencies or excesses by the county agent. Essentially I mulch almost everything. I use a wide variety of soil conditioners and fertilizers which I use in small amounts but over a wide period of time. I have several compost piles going all year long.
High nitrogen fertilizer encourages leaf growth. We use fertilizer with a high middle number, which encourages bloom.
We have a huge strawberry bed and are picking a quart or so a day at the start of the season. Later we’ll have to invite friends to come and pick. We can only use so many berries. We also mulch with straw and use netting to discourage the birds.
Iron content in the soil plays a role.
Don’t overthink it though.
If you planted bushes, you did not plant strawberries. Maybe you planted raspberries.
Some varieties only grow small berries.
Can you post an image of those strawberry bushes? That may help.
Natural, organic strawberries are small. And the small ones do best on their own, without needing a lot of maintenance.
The large ones are hybrid. And they may look impressive, but they don’t taste as good as the small, wild ones.
When the plants first start blossoming, make sure they're well-watered, do not give any more N and start giving them more phosphorus. If you compost, banana peels are excellent.Bone meal and rock phosphate are typical sources. If you can find them, fish bone meal and soy husks are other good sources. Everything is better if you compost it first.
Meats, poultry, eggs and dairy products are also phosphorus-rich (when cleaning out your fridge!), but you'd want to avoid these because they'll attract possums, rats, flies, maggots. You can, however, compost them successfully if you use an anaerobic bokashi composting method.
If you actually see that you have many birds eating your berries, then netting may ultimately be the solution, as you prolly can’t shoot them all. Strawberries can be picky about their growing environment, some varieties more than others. IF you are doing pretty much everything right (not overwatering, but enough water, not pumping the nitrogen so high that the plant grows great but no berries, and you don’t have Verticillium fungus) then perhaps try scratching in some bone meal, applying a layer of compost, and covering the ground with mulch.
Then there is this article: 10 Reasons Strawberry Plants Don’t Produce Strawberries
http://strawberryplants.org/2010/08/strawberry-plants-producing-runners-but-no-strawberries/
Strawberry BUSH?. A few minutes with Google and I find this.
“WARNING
The fruits, though beautiful to look at, are reported to be poisonous if ingested.”
“Strawberry bush–Euonymous americanus. Naturalist refer to the plant as “ice cream” for deer. But it is poisonous to humans. It’s in the bittersweet family.”
Common Name(s):Burning bush, strawberry bush, hearts-a-bustin’, spindle tree, wahoo.
I have had and a neighbor has burning bushes. I had never heard them referred to as “Strawberry Bushes”. This is a misnomer. It does not produce strawberries. It produces red berries that may “look” like strawberries, but they are poisonous.
Burning bushes are a waste of time in my opinion. When planted as a hedge, they may not all turn red at the same time. Once reaching peak red, the leaves, very shortly, all fall off.
Forsythia and Honeysuckle bushes are best. The are the first bushes to leave and blossom. They are hearty and are the last to succumb to the frost.
Forsythia have beautiful, plentiful, yellow flowers while Honeysuckle have a beautiful fragrance that fills the air.
I know they are fairly common, but they give you a long season and are almost impossible to kill. As a hedge, they make a terrific privacy fence. They replace themselves by rooting their branches and can grow quite large if not pruned. You will need a big yard.
1) Most if not all strawberries are tendril crawlers not bushes.
2) We keep netting over ours with most in a fenced areas due to: birds, squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, skunks, racoons, deer, oppossum and the occasional neighborhood pets with a sweet tooth.
3) Our soil has a lot of clay, but we added some topsoil/manure to the garden and have had no issues since.
4) Put in our plants about 5 years ago. First year not much, but every year thereafter fruit has been bigger.
5) Remember I said they were crawlers - we have more plants now then we know what to do with they will self propogate.
When I was a about 60 years ago we used to pick wild strawberries from a field behind the military dependents’ housing complex. They were always very small, but very sweet.
Maybe you’ve got that variety.