Alright!
This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
Today I've got another exciting episode for you coming at you from my backyard garden
and today we're going to talk about a problem I know I have and probably you guys have also.
That's why you're watching this video, that's why you clicked on it.
It's the birds!
What we're looking at here is actually my tree collard plants that every year they seem
to go to flower which they're actually not supposed to and they make seeds.
They make lots of amazing seeds but unfortunately I failed to cover them up and basically the
birds come here, they peck the little pods, the seed pods and they eat the seeds because
after all that's their natural food.
So I'm glad I could feed the birds some of my extra tree collard seeds.
Some of them I do get to save, some of them fall on the ground because they don't get
each and every one, looks like there's actually a lot on the ground that I could sweep up.
Sometimes they fall onto the bed next door and they get all these little sprouts come
up.
So I always have continual plants but I don't have any to send out to you guys in any large
quantities because the birds get them.
So beside the birds getting my tree collard seeds, sometimes they'll pick out seeds that
I plant in the garden under soil and sometimes they'll even eat baby plants.
But most of all, what pisses me off the most is when they eat my damn tomatoes.
So let's go over to my little tomato patch and share with you guys how I'm going to prevent
the birds from eating my tomatoes for just one buck.
So now we're looking at my tomato bed here, I think I have maybe almost a half dozen plants
in a four food circle or raised bed.
I got some, actually smallerish tomato cages on them, they're about four feet tall and
I got all these little cherry tomatoes coming up on me.
So what happens is on these little baby cherry tomatoes that you guys are seeing the birds
will see that they're red, they'll see that they're ripe, they'll see that there's food,
they contain seeds, they contain water and birds in nature, especially here in the desert
they are hungry little creatures.
They'll go in there and they'll peck it once or twice and they'll go somewhere else.
Meanwhile I got pecked tomatoes which is not good for me because I don't like to eat pecked
tomatoes, sometimes I'll cut off the pecked half, compost that and then I'll eat the good
half.
But why do that when you can protect your tomatoes with just something as cheap as one
buck?
This is what I got from the dollar store right here.
It's actually this stuff, it's actually called the garden netting.
This garden netting was at the 99 only store, they have stores I think in California, Nevada,
I've seen them in Texas and maybe some other states.
A lot of other dollar stores may carry some things like this and some others may not.
If you're a dollar store owner, yeah carry gardening stuff man, us gardeners will be
buying your stuff especially for a buck to protect our valuable tomatoes.
So what that this garden netting is do, is just create a barrier over my plants so that
the birds can't get in there.
This is a very simple solution.
I mean if you got some old fish netting if you're no longer fishing and the holes are
small enough, hey use it for your garden.
Basically anything you can put over it to protect your plants from the birds is a good
thing.
They also have fruit tree netting at like a standard nursery and what not.
It's going to cost you a lot more money than a buck but your fruits are definitely worth
it.
So we're just going to go ahead and unfurl this stuff right here, see how long this is.
It kind of stretches out, look at that!
I don't know if you guys could see that, this is nice and huge.
So you could just wrap this around, tie it with some twine or something like that.
But I got something else at the dollar store, but I actually usually have a lot hanging
out.
So I have extra ones, but I got these plant clips.
So these plant clips I normally use them to basically stake up my tomatoes, my peppers
and other plants, cucumbers, and I have so many around here, just hanging out.
I'm just going to use these to clip down the netting to my tomatoes, to the cages so that
I could actually just easily remove it and get it in there and actually harvest my tomatoes
when I want to.
So let's go ahead and put this on and wrap it around.
Alright so as you guys can see I've been working on getting this netting stuff all the way
around my tomato cages, it's working pretty good and I have man a lot of material left.
This is really cool, I started trying to put it around and this bird netting is actually
pretty cheap netting stuff, I mean what do you expect for a buck right.
I got a little bit more time than money.
So yeah, this is working good but you have to untangle this and furl it out and be real
careful, it kind of gets, your plants kind of get stuck on it so you kind of got to like
push all your plants in and keep them inside so they're not running into the netting and
that could be a problem later if you're not paying attention, you know your plants will
grow through the netting and then the birds will able to get the stuff on the outside
then you won't be able to get it on the inside to take it off.
So you just got to pay attention to that.
The technique I've been using actually, I've been going around to the bottom of the netting,
basically it's I don't, it doesn't tell me the overall like length, but I figure if I
stretch it out it'll probably be about like 6 feet tall which is an amazing deal.
It's like 6 feet tall by 32 feet, so that's a huge piece of netting for just a buck.
Now, they do have this netting that I bought which is in the long skinny pack and that's
the good deal one, 32 feet.
They also had a different kind of netting that was like in a square pack, that was significantly
less netting for the same price, although the netting wasn't as thin, it was a little
bit more thick, but I want to cover the maximum square foot area for the minimal cost.
So this is the one that I got.
So anyways I went around the whole bottom, pinned that up, I kind of draped of the top
and I got to pull this tight and use all the rest at the end to go up the top to make just
a big enclosure so that the birds can't get in there.
I'm going to go ahead and finish this up and come back at you when I'm all done.
Alright so as you guys could see I got the netting all the way wrapped around my tomatoes
and now they're protected against the birds.
I had so much extra netting actually I could of went double high, so actually I just put
a cage upside down in the middle one only to make like a little house or round hut shape,
although maybe later I'll go back in, put upside down cages on each one of these guys
and make it double high so that my plants have more room to grow.
The easy thing about this when I want to get in there I just clip off the bottom and roll
it up and that's where all my tomatoes are at the moment, they're near the bottom, roll
it up, get the good ones, roll it back down and then let my tomatoes ripen up without
the birds getting them.
Now whether you guys have problems with birds and tomatoes or whether you guys got gophers
or rabbits this is an easy way to protect your plants, simply put a covering on them,
you don't need to use any kind of like anti-bird deterrent, streamers, ribbons flying in the
air, pinwheels, fake owls, although you could get an ally cat and let them roam your garden,
they'll probably get the birds.
But you just need to protect them and cover them with some netting like this, I got for
a buck or if you got the real stuff go to a nursery get the real bird netting, that
stuff's a lot easier to work with because it's lot more thick then this thin stuff,
but hey, if this lasts me a season and I get tons of tomatoes out of my garden and the
birds don't for a dollar I think it's definitely worth it.
The other thing you could do of course is use something like chicken wire to surround
your garden, build that around your whole garden to keep them out and if you got things
like gophers and whatnot, put chicken wire even a bigger, thicker gage wire on the bottom
of your raised bed so that they can't get in from underneath.
There's always a way to protect your garden naturally without using any kind of chemicals,
pesticides or herbicides, anything like this by simply protecting them.
That's why you guys lock your doors at night right?
So the burglars don't come and break into your house and steal your stuff.
I don't want the birds stealing my hard work and eating my delicious beyond organic tomatoes
and neither do you.
So now you guys know how to protect your tomatoes for a buck, if you don't have the 99 only
stores near you check your other dollar stores or you'll just have to go to the nursery and
spend more money, maybe some website online maybe sells this stuff for a couple bucks,
but nonetheless there's always a way to protect your food today, all animals do this.
So if you guys enjoyed this episode hey please give me a thumbs up to let me know.
Also be sure to click that subscribe link right down below to be notified of new and
upcoming episodes I have coming out about every three to four days.
Also be sure to check my past episodes I have over 1100 episodes teaching you guys all aspects
on how you guys could grow your own food, protect it from birds and bugs and pests and
all kinds of stuff, everything you guys need to know so that you guys could be successful
at biologic, organic gardening.
So once again my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
We'll see you next time and until then remember keep on growing.
Latest Episode on Growing Your Greens!
Alright!
This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
Today we've got another exciting episode for you coming at you from my beautiful backyard
garden on a beautiful spring day.
Summer's almost here!
Hopefully you guys got your garden's planted out