Problem
seedling surround
Bird pest control in the vegetable garden has been a challenge for me this season. I have been shocked this year to find birds attacking and eating plants in my garden. In spite of the surrounds I put around my seedlings to stop birds from carrying away the small plants, trouble was afoot This time, however, it was a different crisis. I looked out early in the morning two weeks ago to see my bean and beet plants decimated. All the blossoms had been pecked off my squash plants and were laying on the ground. I was dumbstruck as to the identity of the culprit that was attacking my vegetables. I cleaned up the debris and woke up early the next morning to see if the predator would return. To my horror, I found a swarm of black birds hovering over my garden.
I learned after some quick research that blackbirds, which include red-winged blackbird, cowbirds, grackles, starlings and crows, were the offenders. Even with my surrounds, the birds had managed to strip the leaves off plants well over a foot high in addition to smaller plants. I needed to take immediate action to stop the early morning destruction before my entire crops would be gone. I immediately grabbed some mylar and tin plates. The mylar is meant to scare the birds and the tin plates to make such a racket that it discourages them from entering the garden. Unfortunately, the mylar was not effective and the noise from the plates was annoying to my family as well as my neighbors. Time for netting!
Strategy
Most garden centers and hardware stores carry bird netting. The best way to cover your plants with this netting is to use stakes or wood to support the netting above your plants without actually touching the plants. I stretched my netting tightly around the supports so as to prevent the birds from getting entangled in it. The framework I created was inexpensive and easy to set up. I then anchored the mesh to the ground with landscape pins. Slits cut down the netting allows me to easily access the secured vegetables. In addition, I use twisty ties to close the netting where I made the cuts.
netting around soybeans
netting around squash
So far, so good. The morning after I set up the netting, the birds were back at dawn. They realized there was no entry to the beans, squash and beets and flew away. They have not returned since then. Close call, but I think I am safe from the birds attacking my vegetables and have succeeded in bird pest control in the garden.