Reply #4: Never grown strawberries myself...

[Elad]

But when caterpillars were devouring my greens last year, I found a solution of roughly the following ingredients, sprayed liberally on the plants as often as necessary, worked really well:

Fill a spray bottle 2/3rds with water
Add a few squirts (don't go overboard on this one) of natural dishwashing soap (such as Earth Friendly brand, available at health food stores)
Add in liberal amounts of finely ground (so it doesn't clog the sprayer) garlic powder and cayenne pepper

Shake the whole thing up and spray it as often as necessary to keep the bugs off, during the bad weeks I sprayed my plants everyday. I still lost a few leaves, but never enough to kill the plant, and I lost several plants before I started spraying, so I found it quite effective for making the plants not-tasty. The solution washes right off once you harvest, so you can keep on spraying up to right before you harvest.