Build a walk-in fruit cage. As long as you get a decent timber or metal structure in place and cover it with taut mesh and a secure doorway with no gaps this will keep birds off your vegetable plot and fruit bushes and, designed well, can be a decorative addition to the garden.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
"contributing to the problem by covering the soil"
(I did also explain that if I don't cover the base of my plants with something, the birds will dig relentlessly into the root base, eventually killing the plant)
It's a damned if I do and damned if I don't situation. If I don't mulch, especially in summer time when the average temperature can go above 30 degrees celsius for weeks at a time, then I am being extremely wasteful of water and the plants will really suffer with their open surrounding soil drying out in a matter of hours. Mulching is essential for most of my vegetables out here.
Heck, who doesn't mulch? It's pretty essential for lots of plants when you live somewhere warm.
If I do mulch, the birds destroy everything.
I did explain why cages are not an option for me, so I won't comment on that - but thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately it's just not something that will work for me. I don't want to look out to seven wire boxes out there.
There doesn't appear to me much that can be done aside from covering the ground with bird wire. Forever. And dealing with the frustration of having to gradually remove it / cut it as the plants grow.
....and slugs, schmugs. My blackbirds do not give a toss about them. I am forever removing them myself by hand. They do love my worms, though.
Obelixx is talking about proper 'walk in' fruit cages as used in the beautiful gardens of many a stately home in the UK. You don't have to remove them to see to your tomatoes ... you simply open the door and walk in.
In an ideal world in which I had the time and money to spend on building such a thing - great.
Sadly, I work 40 hours a week and have my work cut out as it is maintaining the house and garden, and the list of work to be done such as rainwater tank installation, weatherboard maintenance etc is quite long.
Ultimately though, I simply do not want to enclose my garden like this. I want to be able to freely walk through, explore and interact with it without wire walls, so to speak.
There simply isn't a safe or sustainable way to prevent blackbirds (Myna birds, I think) from routinely destroying anything I plant - that doesn't involve the application of bird mesh to the ground. It's a great nuisance when new things are becoming seedlings - removing wire without destroying the plant etc as things grow - but there's just no other way. I have to suck it up, basically!
Initially I thought, blackbirds - seriously? I've some badgers that when they last surfaced from their torpor: made a bee-line for my nicely mulched hedgerows, and dug! Just when I thought they'd got going.
The blackbirds here are quite shy. I can't help but think they are smashing rocks together with one common noise they make. They always fly away when I approach. I have no idea what they are up to.
It is annoying when you feel there is a bit of a fight/battle going on. I pretend to be relaxed - that's until another incident...
Good ones are not cheap but you can get very realistic "kite hawks" A kite that looks like a bird of prey, they are fitted to a long extendable pole. The slightest breath of wind will lift it into the sky and scare off other birds. You need to find out what your birds are afraid of. Another option might be a sonic noise generator, the only snag with those is if you have young children around they might be driven mad by it as they can hear in a much higher frequency than most adults. Either worth a try if you you really don't want the cage option.
Posts
Hear! hear! Mark ... we have lots at the moment and they're welcome here
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Build a walk-in fruit cage. As long as you get a decent timber or metal structure in place and cover it with taut mesh and a secure doorway with no gaps this will keep birds off your vegetable plot and fruit bushes and, designed well, can be a decorative addition to the garden.
I'm in Victoria, Australia...
"contributing to the problem by covering the soil"
(I did also explain that if I don't cover the base of my plants with something, the birds will dig relentlessly into the root base, eventually killing the plant)
It's a damned if I do and damned if I don't situation. If I don't mulch, especially in summer time when the average temperature can go above 30 degrees celsius for weeks at a time, then I am being extremely wasteful of water and the plants will really suffer with their open surrounding soil drying out in a matter of hours. Mulching is essential for most of my vegetables out here.
Heck, who doesn't mulch? It's pretty essential for lots of plants when you live somewhere warm.
If I do mulch, the birds destroy everything.
I did explain why cages are not an option for me, so I won't comment on that - but thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately it's just not something that will work for me. I don't want to look out to seven wire boxes out there.
There doesn't appear to me much that can be done aside from covering the ground with bird wire. Forever. And dealing with the frustration of having to gradually remove it / cut it as the plants grow.
....and slugs, schmugs. My blackbirds do not give a toss about them. I am forever removing them myself by hand. They do love my worms, though.
Last edited: 12 January 2018 22:31:48
Re cages - they can be very ornamental. Have a google for images and ideas.
Obelixx is talking about proper 'walk in' fruit cages as used in the beautiful gardens of many a stately home in the UK. You don't have to remove them to see to your tomatoes ... you simply open the door and walk in.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=fruit+cage+design&rlz=1C1PRFC_enGB734GB735&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjPvLXK6tTYAhVqKsAKHVmgCY8Q_AUICygC&biw=1093&bih=530#imgrc=s24-csjSz0GLjM:
Last edited: 13 January 2018 11:27:58
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thanks.
In an ideal world in which I had the time and money to spend on building such a thing - great.
Sadly, I work 40 hours a week and have my work cut out as it is maintaining the house and garden, and the list of work to be done such as rainwater tank installation, weatherboard maintenance etc is quite long.
Ultimately though, I simply do not want to enclose my garden like this. I want to be able to freely walk through, explore and interact with it without wire walls, so to speak.
There simply isn't a safe or sustainable way to prevent blackbirds (Myna birds, I think) from routinely destroying anything I plant - that doesn't involve the application of bird mesh to the ground. It's a great nuisance when new things are becoming seedlings - removing wire without destroying the plant etc as things grow - but there's just no other way. I have to suck it up, basically!
Mynah birds ... ah well, not a problem we have here ... sometimes the hardest part of gardening is learning to live with what we've got :-/
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Initially I thought, blackbirds - seriously? I've some badgers that when they last surfaced from their torpor: made a bee-line for my nicely mulched hedgerows, and dug! Just when I thought they'd got going.
The blackbirds here are quite shy. I can't help but think they are smashing rocks together with one common noise they make. They always fly away when I approach. I have no idea what they are up to.
It is annoying when you feel there is a bit of a fight/battle going on. I pretend to be relaxed - that's until another incident...
Last edited: 15 January 2018 12:04:11
Good ones are not cheap but you can get very realistic "kite hawks" A kite that looks like a bird of prey, they are fitted to a long extendable pole. The slightest breath of wind will lift it into the sky and scare off other birds. You need to find out what your birds are afraid of. Another option might be a sonic noise generator, the only snag with those is if you have young children around they might be driven mad by it as they can hear in a much higher frequency than most adults. Either worth a try if you you really don't want the cage option.
Perhaps just see what other people nearby are doing to manage the problem.