Tip of the Day
jaybeacham 17 Aug 2012 | : blog
I was over at Guy Weltzel’s place today.
With the County Fair four days last week (I portrayed Abraham Lincoln where people could get their photo taken with Abe) and my not remembering earlier this week, I didn’t pick figs there like he said I could.
I found 15 large, not fully ripe ones still on the tree that I picked and two not ripe that I left.
The birds had taken all the rest and the ground was covered with the remains of a great many figs that had graced the tree earlier.
I wish I had remembered.
What could have preserved some of the figs?
Guy had a plastic owl attacked to the block wall next to the tree.
Those things don’t work, not even the ones with the motion sensor eyes that light up and move or the ones that move on their own. It doesn’t take long for the birds to realize that these things are fake.
In the past I put aluminum pie pans in trees, cassette tape, metal lids, etc that move in the wind. But the birds soon learn that these things will cause them no harm.
What should he put in his fig tree?
What I started putting in mine.
cd discs !!!!
Sometimes when I try to use new cd discs right out of the pack, they are defective and won’t record or play. and even though you can buff old discs and get them to work again, often that is not worth while and they can get so scratched that nothing will restore them.
I’ve started hanging bad cds in my fig tree (and other fruit trees-they can even be used on grape vines). These work so well that no bird dares approach the tree because not only do they turn in the wind when tied to a tree but they shimmer in a wide variety of colors all day long. The birds never know what to expect and they aren’t sure just what these things are so they stay away.
My last crop of figs at my house was saved with no bird damage just by the hanging of two cds in the top of the tree.
I’ll move them to a different location next crop. Thus keeping the birds confused. “Maybe these things really are alive,” they might think.
So what’s the tip of the day?
Cds to chase away birds from fruit crops.