In the name of delicious tomatoes

[logovo]

After finally figuring the correct watering schedule for my tomato plants (had a problem with bottom rot with the first ones, and before that some mealiness) these yellow chested birds show up in my garden and are PECKING AT MY PLANTS.

>:(

My strawberries are gone as soon as they ripen, my green beans don't get a chance to even ripen (I think the birds eat the blossoms) and about a dozen tomatoes have been pecked at if not completely eaten.

So, some netting is called for, first time we've had this problem, but I've never seen these particular birds in our yard before. If I could just leave my cat out in the yard all day she would scare some of the foraging. Mr. Logovo, normally a rescuer of birds that Dargo manages to catch, does not seem inclined to stop me from releasing Dargo on bird patrol. But Dargo is only allowed to be outside when we're at home and can be called in (weirdly obedient cat I have) so those birds could be eating my tomatoes right now, as I'm sitting at my desk!

Comments

[laurashapiro]

We put netting over our strawberries because we were having the same problem, but their season is over now for us (no more flowers, no more fruit), so it was a bit pointless.

Good to know we might need it on the tomatoes, though!

[logovo]

Our strawberries are in their last legs, so we might not even bother netting them. We rarely plant them, so we don't know how to take care of them yet, but the few we got were worth trying again next year. But yeah, what few little strawberries that still show up don't have a chance.

The tomato eating birds is news to me! I was worried about bugs, our usual pests. One solution that I've seen mentioned is to using nylons to cover the green fruit. Apparently that lets them get enough sun and air that they mature OK. But considering that we have a LOT of tomatoes coming in, that would be completely impractical for us. So netting it is. Hopefully that will work.

[laurashapiro]

Do post about your results -- I long to hear.

And yeah, we had a tiny crop of strawberries, but they sent out a lot of runners and we expect to have more next year.

[logovo]

Success! Netting scared away the bird(s) after it got caught in it for a few seconds. I'm glad it didn't really get trapped, but it had a hard trouble getting away when we heard it and came out to the garden.

Next worry: That bug eating birds will not be getting to worms living in the tomato plants. We might take the netting off next weekend, see how that works. It's just so easy to do.

[laurashapiro]

Oh, good point!

Thanks for the update. Glad the bird wasn't harmed.