Our tomato crop is being ravaged through way of an not likely pest: birds.
Normally, I think about birds as being allies within the war in the direction of pests, because they consume all kinds of bugs and other critters that assault our flowers. But currently, we've got commenced discovering tomatoes with big holes in them, as if something had taken a chunk out of them, and thinking about the truth that we recognise the groundhogs are fenced out, it appears birds are the most in all likelihood offender. The tomato demonstrated within the picture proper right here is one of the a great deal much less damaged ones; the greater considerably damaged ones are practically torn in , and Brian does no longer even problem seeking to bring them into the residence.
Based on what I've look at on gardening forums like this one, it appears the birds are attacking our tomatoes now not for meals, however for water. The maximum commonly proposed answer is to provide a few kind of birdbath or bird waterer, in order that they have some different water source handy and do not need to % at the tomatoes. I looked for methods to mock up a DIY birdbath and located a slideshow on Bob Vila's internet site that offers a whole lot of interesting mind, but basically, it appears that each one you actually need is a few sort of shallow tray to maintain the water and some form of stand to area it on. Since Brian and I had simply lately modified our cat's water dispenser with a larger one that the kitties can not push around as effects, we decided to pinnacle off the the antique one and set it atop an inverted 5-gallon bucket (the equal kind we use for our tree waterers). We figured if this worked, we may additionally need to constantly update it with a few component nicer-looking later. We might also want to have set this up subsequent to the clothesline, in which our birdfeeder is now, but Brian belief it is probably superb to put it as near the garden as viable, so the birds could see an possibility supply of water proper subsequent to the tomatoes. So he set the entirety up inside the little lower back lane in the back of the fenced-in lawn area wherein our hardy kiwi vines are planted.
So is it running? Well, it is kind of difficult to tell. Since we set it up, there were fewer tomatoes pecked apart, but we have also been getting fewer tomatoes altogether. Also, the weather hasn't been as warm this week because it have become multiple weeks within the beyond, this means that that the birds may additionally simply now not be as thirsty. And finally, Brian has been seeking to guard the tomatoes in the direction of bird damage by means of manner of choosing them earlier, at
That was news to me, since all the articles I'd seen about buying tomatoes urged shoppers to make sure the ones they bought were "fully vine ripened" and not let the store foist tomatoes on them that had been picked while still green and ripened in some warehouse, or in the truck en route to the store. However, when I Googled "should I let my tomatoes ripen on the vine," the articles I found generally seemed to agree that what's wrong with supermarket tomatoes is that they're inferior varieties bred for endurance rather than flavor, and a decent homegrown tomato will taste good whenever you pick it. This garden blogger, for instance, says she has always picked her tomatoes at first blush and gotten a much bigger crop than her neighbors who insisted on letting theirs ripen fully—and when they tasted some of hers, they were sold.
I know from personal experience that it's possible to pick tomatoes when they're still completely green, before the frost gets them, and ripen them in boxes indoors, but I also know that the tomatoes you get this way don't ripen as reliably, or taste as good, as the ones picked at the height of summer. But if these sources are to be believed, a tomato that has started to turn red—even just a tiny bit—can be trusted to ripen fully on its own and will taste just as good as if it had ripened on the vine. (Tomatoes that are completely green, on the other hand, will never ripen and will just rot in the box—so if you pick fully green tomatoes before the frost, you should find some way of using them in their green state.)
Indeed, according to this article from the National Gardening Association, shelf-ripened tomatoes may actually look better, too, since tomatoes don't turn red at temperatures above 86°F. So if you want a nice, full red color, you're actually better off letting them ripen indoors where it's slightly cooler. In fact, considering that our house occasionally does get above 86°F on the main level, we might be better off leaving them downstairs to ripen.
So the plan for now is to keep picking our tomatoes early, which should help not only with the bird problem but also with cracking and possibly ward off other pests. As for the birdbath, we may as well leave it; even if it's not helping, at least it's probably not doing any harm, and offering the birds a drink will encourage them to hang around our yard and keep eating smaller pests.
