Harvest Early
Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do if the birds in your garden just won’t be dissuaded.
Since tomatoes will ripen off of the vine, you can pick them when they start to develop a little color and let them finish ripening indoors.
Put several of them in a paper bag to hasten the process.
Birds usually won’t eat green tomatoes, so if you’re seeing holes in those, I’d suspect they were caused by slugs before our flying friends.
Netting
Netting is the absolute best and most foolproof way to protect your plants. Our avian friends can’t poke holes in your fruits if they can’t reach them.
But I’m not a fan of the loosely-woven, very flimsy stuff.
Birds can become tangled up in it resulting in broken legs and wings, as well leaving them vulnerable to predators.
An animal trapped in netting can’t reach food or water and many die an unpleasant death.
In addition to harming birds, squirrels, mice, rabbits, and other small animals can get caught in it as well.
If you’re going to use netting, either use a product that is so tightly woven that birds won’t get caught in it, like mosquito netting or ultra-fine mesh, or make sure it’s firm and sturdy so it won’t tangle if an animal gets into it.
If you can fasten the mesh on a frame rather than draping it over your plants, even better. That way, when a bird lands on it, they won’t get tangled up.
I’ve had good luck with mesh from the Unves Store. It’s fine enough that animals aren’t going to get trapped, but it’s not so dense that it shades my plants.
You can nab a 10- by 20-foot piece at Amazon.
I prop it up using poles so it doesn’t touch my plants.
Scare Tactics
As we’ll discuss in a bit, immobile objects designed to scare birds don’t work.
A scarecrow or fake owl quickly becomes just another element in the yard. But objects that move can work, at least for a while.
Smarter species will figure out pretty quickly that these are nothing to fear, but you might buy yourself enough time to harvest your goodies.
Wind spinners, garlands with long streamers, and other items that will move in the wind can be scary enough to deter birds. You’re on your own on a windless day, though.
Sound deterrents can be effective. Commercial growers and college agricultural fields will use sound cannons to deter birds from their fields.
But these aren’t practical – or very neighborly – in the home garden.
