purplegardener
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Birds: keep them out or let them in?

I have netting over top of my raised garden, but I feel like I could use some birds to eat some bugs. is it worth taking it off or will the birds just eat my little plants?

Really what I'm saying is: birds- keep them out or let them in?

bri80
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Location: Portland, OR

I let them in. They don't really do much, if any, damage to my garden. Sometimes there's ones that like to eat little bits of my chard leaves. They've never taken too much that I considered it an issue.

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rainbowgardener
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depends on what the plants are. Birds will destroy your strawberries and may peck holes in your tomatoes. If you have baby seedlings birds may pull them up. Otherwise, I've never had much damage from birds.

purplegardener
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So maybe a little net over my strawberries and leave the rest until the tomatoes start to actually appear?

imafan26
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Depends on the birds. I also don't like bird poop on my greens. The birds around here like fruit strawberries, any berry, tomatoes, papaya, mango, orchids, chili peppers. The birds will pick out the seed from my containers on the nursery bench so I have to keep them covered. Birds will also eat every Hawaiian chili, leaving only the caps and make holes in every large tomato, unless they taste bad. Even I won't eat those, and I am not that picky.

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rainbowgardener
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purplegardener wrote:So maybe a little net over my strawberries and leave the rest until the tomatoes start to actually appear?
That works!

Taiji
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Really depends on what your particular situation is. In my case, I perform the annual ritual of rolling on the bird netting over the garden in spring and rolling it up in winter. (snow load would collapse the whole thing!) If I don't do this, the Gambel Quail would eat all my seedlings. This happened for years until I finally realized what was doing the damage. But, this is unusual situation in my particular environment.

Now they just perch on the top of the fence and gaze longingly into the enclosure. :)

There must be some reason why you put the netting there in the first place?

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Gary350
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Birds are my garden friends. I have about 15 bird houses and I never spray toxic bug poison on my garden. Wrens eat their body weight in bugs every day. July and August when it stops raining birds get thirsty I put water pans in my garden, birds do not peck holes in my tomatoes to get a drink. Birds only eat berries when they are ripe so cover them up only when they are ripe.

Image

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jal_ut
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Keep them out or let them in?

I reckon it may depend on the birds in question and what you are growing? Are the birds doing any damage? The birds have the run of my garden. They may eat a strawberry now and then, but I have not had any major problems from birds.

ButterflyLady29
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It depends on the crop. Here the robins devour the black raspberries and blackberries before they get ripe if the crops aren't netted. I've lost my entire crop some years because of bird damage. When I grew sorghum, buckwheat and sunflowers the birds got the grains long before they were ripe enough to harvest. But in most cases the birds are wonderful garden bug control. Wrens are my best friends in the bug control area.

wisconsindead
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I am still trying to determine this myself. I've never had any problems with birds in relation to peppers or tomatoes. I am still unsure about strawberries. I didn't have any noticeable issues with my heritage (late summer/fall) raspberries last year.



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