Something is nibbling my strawberries and I think it is birds. A coworker is letting me borrow some bird netting .I think I am going to have to get some more to go over my tomatoes. Here is what it looks like in my strawberry bed. The netting is dark and almost invisible but I took it such that you could see it. The pic here is kind of an overview. The stakes holding it up are metal tubes from those outdoor shelters you can put up. I'm glad I saved them.
I put paper cups over the top and secured with rubber bands as the poles would just go through the netting holes. Here is another view.
Here you can see my tomates in the rows on the left, they are caged, staked, and coverd. The pics I have where they are uncoverd are too visually busy to see how the individual plants are arranged. I would like to use netting to cover these two rows of tomatoes. I have no idea how to do it. It's hard enough to manuver around the strawberries now with the netting. I can't imagine simply draping it over the tomatos. I thought if maybe cutting it up into smaller sections, maybe cover 3 at a time. Somehow. Or prop it up so you could walk under it, somehow.
I have already decided I am going to transplant these strawberries in the raised bed next year, when ever the optimal time for that is, right before spring I guess. I still need to know how to cover the tomatos though.
I think I am going to have to build a frame, then get a super duper supply of netting so I can drape it over the frame. That sounds like more work than I might want to do though.
When I was using netting, I found it bothersome to have to do a lot of work to lift the netting so I could get at the strawberries to pick them.
What other way is there to keep out the birds? Right now I do not have to do a lot of work because I don't have strawberries. They aren't even getting a whole strawberry, they just eat the pink parts of the strawberries.
It seems like the netting will be a lot of trouble for the strawberries, but even more trouble for the tomatos. Moving the strawberries to a raised be should help but that's next year. I am thinking of maybe havinging individual net veils for each tomato plant, that way I could simply lift it up to do what I have to do
Margo - you might try to make a cover using hardware cloth (also known as metal mesh).
It comes in 1/2" squares & 1/4" too.
I use the 1/2"; cut the length I need; and bend into a "tunnel".
My strawberries are in raised beds, so I cut them to 4' lengths.
When bent, they are high & wide enough to clear the plants. It is easy to take them off when you need to work the bed. of course, you could make them longer. Fairly lightweight, allows sun/rain through, but not the birds.
You will want to cover the ends though, in case you have some Einsteins waiting for the berries! useful to deter rabbits, too.
At the end of the season, you can store them, or leave in place.
Netting works, but it's tough to work with & not fun when you have to untangle a bird.
I would take a picture for you, but it's pouring rain today...
I do that with chicken wire. Works well on row crops.
i don't think it's birds getting my strawberries, I think it's rats, maybe squirrels. I took pics of some chewed ones that kind of show the teeth pattern, I'll post them tommorrow (I don't feel like getting up to get my memory card). We live near a golf course and marshes, there are these marsh rats running around. My doggies are supposed to guard against this! I have some havaheart traps I could set but my doggies go nuts at the sight of them. I ate 4 partially ripened ones, 2 of them were about perfect I would say. i wanted to get to some before they had bites missing.
it's always nice to eat a whole one!
Consider the possibility of slugs, as well.
ooooooooooh - slugs with teeth!
Well your garden is beautiful and I hope you take care of whatever is getting away with your produce.
Hardware cloth is great! I used it to make a chicken coop this year, and absolutely love it. I'm using it for a fence to keep my silkies out of my new vegetable garden too. It can be hard to deal with at times though. If you have to cut it, you get these sharp little points. Maybe there is a way to deal wtih that that I don't know. I think you could make a cage for your strawberries almost. Just get some wood like 1X2's or something and staple or screw the hardware cloth on it. I used screws and washers to hold mine in place. Ok, so I am talking out of turn and know very little about gardening. lol I do know that the ladies in the poultry section said they use the 1/2 inch hardware cloth to keep mice and rats away from their baby chicks. That's where I learned about hardware cloth. If you did try the little cage idea, I would think you would need to stake them down somehow.
Again, your garden looks great. I just hope I can learn to grow something.
Here is a pic of the strawberries. It's not a very good pic but you can see a pattern of teeth marks in them. I have about 16 strawberry plants, I don't think I can build cages to go around them all. If I move them to a raised bed I can build a frame and put hardware cloth around that. I am wondering if sprinkling red pepper powder on or under the plants would discourage the rats.
I was thinking of making a chicken tractor! They could assist me in fertilizing the garden and I would have eggs.
You might also put out some of those big bars of rat poison they sell at the feed store. They are not very expensive, I think $5, and seem to be pretty effective.
As far as the chickens go, I really enjoy mine and have plenty of fresh eggs now. They spend their day in the backyard doing their chicken things, and at night they go in their small pen, which started as a chicken tractor. I ended up making it too heavy to really be moved, but I started with that intention.
Mine are silkies from a hatchery. If I had it all to do over, I would buy show quality birds instead. These are just not very pretty silkies like the pictures I was seeing online, but they are mine now and will always have a home here as long as I do. Silkies do not fly and they sleep close to the ground. Since I live in town I wanted ones that couldn't fly over the fence and get me in trouble with the neighbors. I can also put up a fence around my garden and they won't be able to fly over. I'm probably talking too much, but I can say I absolutely adore having these chickens. They are so relaxing to watch. The main concern with them is protecting them from predators, which is not always easy.
Are you sure its not chipmunks getting your strawberries? I had trouble with birds in my corn so I put up shiny bird tape crisscrossed across the corn and that did the trick. However, my strawberries were just a few feet from the corn and I had bird netting over them but chipmunks were burrowing under my chicken wire fence to get to the berries. They only chewed on the best, ripest ones and didn't even finish each one just taking a few bites out of each. I don't have a strawberry patch anymore because of the chipmunks.
We don't have chipmunks here, we have raccoons, possoms, squirrels (lots of squirrels) and marsh rats, which kind of look like chinchillas when they are sitting in a tree.
Yep, they take a few bites out of each one, for the most part they eat the ripened part of the berry.
I have accepted the fact I will not get to eat many of my berries this year but I fear for my tomatos. I am wondering if sprinkling red pepper powder on or near the plants would help. I am going to try it after this rain!
I tried covering my lone tomato plant with birdnetting last year and swore off it. I'd rather the birds got the few that they got. It was just a mess what with the lizards and snakes getting caught in the netting and the tomato plant growing through it. Neighbor hangs CDs from her tomato stakes and that seems to do the trick so that's what I'm gonna do this year with all those junk CDs you get in the mail.
