Birds & Tomatoes

[Davej]

I put a bowl of water out there in the garden. Will that help?

[David Hare-Scott]

Is this to help the birds to cool their little throats during a tomato feast? The question is a fraction unclear.

[Terry Coombs]

They'll use it to wash the tomatoes down ...

[George Shirley]

Probably not, have had that problem before and Cardinals were after the seeds. Had a bird bath back then and kept it full.

[songbird]

a bowl may not be very attractive to birds, they often like broad shallow puddles for bathing or drinking. if you do have a bird bath they'll prefer one that is broad and shallow with an edge they can grip in their feet.

we've not experienced birds eating the tomatoes that often, we have bird baths, but they are not in the gardens near the tomatoes. the only thing we want them to be attracted to the gardens is for getting the bugs. so we do not feed the birds here other than what the plants drop as seeds and the bugs.

we had a few extra tomato plants this year and put them outside the fenced garden and they are near one of the bird baths. the deer have munched on a few of them already coming in to get a drink. it will be interesting to see if we get any kind of harvest from those plants this year. last year we had a few tomato plants in about the same area but the deer and birds left them alone other than using them as a spot to perch.

songbird

[Davej]

So far it has not helped, so I am picking tomatoes when they are pink and letting them ripen on the windowsill.

[Frank]

Original post unclear. Do you want birds in your tomatoes? If so, putting something there to attract them will just bring more in.

[George Shirley]

I've experienced Cardinals, aka Redbirds, pecking tomatoes to get to the seeds. Mockingbirds here devastate the fig crop if not netted but also get into the gardens looking for bugs to eat. Have not seen a cardinal here but would like to know what bird eats stink bugs, would import those.

We have lots of herons, cranes, and the occasional duck into the retention pond behind our house. Every morning and evening the swallows and martins are whizzing around out there getting mosquitoes and other insects. The night crew is little brown bats and frogs. Most of which are helpful.

Have started seeing deer tracks along the dirt road around the pond area. Grandson lives down the street and has a children's play fort by his back fence. Might make a good deer stand with bow and arrow.

Been gardening the better part of sixty years, no matter what you do the bugs and critters are going to get their share, might as well enjoy watching them work.

George

[David Hare-Scott]

I am still wondering how the water bowl was supposed to help.

Net them. You can buy polymer bird netting quite cheaply and it will last for years unless you have attackers with sharp teeth like possums. You don't need a fancy trellis just drape it over and re settle it when you work on the plants.

[Davej]

My question was whether they were pecking the tomato for the moisture because they were too lazy to fly up to the normal birdwater location.

[songbird]

interesting, we've had many cardinals here over the years and i've never noticed them paying any attention at all to the tomatoes.

songbird

[Frank]

I'm not a bird expert and have never seen them pecking my tomatoes and there is no water source within several hundred yards.

Once I had a problem with Japanese beetles on my grape vines and hung a trap on the vines. Damage was worse as more beetles were attracted in.

If birds are a problem you don't want to attract more of them so put the water source far away. I suspect birds are not your problem unless you have seen them doing it.

[Pat Kiewicz]

Sometimes a bird or animal will accidentally discover something to its advantage but not to yours. For instance, the rabbit that somehow figured out how to topple my lilies to get to the tender buds up top. Or the cardinal that figured out how to pull the corn sprouts to get to the kernel. (I watched it happen.) I netted all my corn plantings for several years after that, and finally skipped it again last spring with no losses.

[songbird]

Pat Kiewicz wrote: ...

sure, there's always the self-starters which make life interesting...

songbird