Not only amateur gardeners are happy with home-grown fruits and vegetables – birds also like to feast on berries and fruits. To prevent this from happening, there are several ways to scare away birds.
Soon you can collect the first berries and vegetables in the garden and on the balcony. Delicious tomatoes, crunchy lettuce leaves and sweet fruits are used not only by amateur gardeners, but also by voracious birds. However, there is not much left from the delicious harvest. myHOMEBOOK reveals how to carefully keep birds away from the garden, and therefore from fruit bushes and garden beds, and why plant protection nets are not always the best solution.
What scares birds into the garden
To prevent birds from attacking tomatoes, lettuce and berries in the garden, there are several useful means that repel animals:
1. Mobile
Small mobiles that you hang on branches or on tomato sticks in the garden are especially suitable. They move with the wind, driving the birds away. Ideally, the mobile is made of old CDs or other shiny metal and plastic parts that reflect light well.
2. Windmills
Birds do not like noise. That is why wind chimes are worth paying attention to. Made from old cans or metal strips – hung on a tree, they knock against each other in the wind and scare away animals. If that’s too loud or too non-melodic for you, you can also opt for wind chimes.
3. Animal imitations
If you don’t want to hang anything on the branches, you can also use an imitation animal to keep birds away from the garden. You should choose an animal that poses a threat to birds, for example, a fox or a crow. These animals are ready-made replicas, mostly made of plastic, and can easily be placed in the garden.
4. Motion sensor with noise signal
There are also now motion sensors that only go off when a bird is actually nearby. They emit acoustic stimuli, and the animals think that there is an enemy nearby and fly away. Advantage: the signal is activated only when the birds actually appear, and there is little or no habituation effect in the animals.
5. Scarecrow
If you want to protect your crop from birds, you can use a good old scarecrow. However, animals get used to it quite quickly, so the efficiency should be increased. You can read here how it works.
Why you need to be careful with nets to protect green plants
- Many home gardeners opt for so-called bird or plant protection nets, which are designed to keep voracious birds away from fruits and vegetables in the garden. However, these green nets can also be dangerous for animals. They become entangled in the net, and the net becomes a death trap – the birds suffocate, die of thirst or exhaustion.
- In order for birds not to get into an emergency situation, green nets should be avoided as a matter of principle. Alternatively, you can go back to the other color options – in the meantime, there are also blue grids. Unlike green webs, birds see blue ones.
- It is also important to pay attention to the fine mesh of the mesh: the finer the better. Because then animals cannot get into it so easily. At the same time, the plants are also protected from other pests, such as bugs, aphids, cherry vinegar flies or whiteflies. Then the size of the mesh should not be more than 0.8 by 0.8 millimeters.
- In addition, nets must be securely fastened to bushes or fruit trees. Otherwise, birds may fly in from below and then not find a way out. You should also check the nets every day so that the animal does not get caught.
- By the way: if the nets lie directly on the bed on the ground, they can also pose a danger to hedgehogs, frogs and other small animals.