How to Prevent Birds From Eating Your Tomatoes

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I started planting tomatoes two years ago and have been struggling with keeping birds from eating my ripening tomatoes. It’s so frustrating to come out in the morning and see half eaten tomatoes when it took so much time and effort to cultivate the plants.

At first the birds were only eating the red tomatoes. But then they got wise and started eating my yellow and purple varieties too.

I tried a couple different ways of deterring the birds including toy windmills, hanging DVDs on string. But nothing worked so I finally resorted to bird netting.

This was an inexpensive and simple option. The netting was easy to cut and to work with.

Here is a video of my setup:

I used wooden clothes pins to close up the gaps at the ends which also allowed easy access to the netted part of the garden for harvesting. I’ve found that plastic clothes pins fall apart and disintegrate in the hot desert sun.

Make sure you measure your garden to determine how much netting you need.

This is the bird netting I bought from Amazon US and so far I have been very happy with the quality, thickness and size:

So far, this netting has lasted me three growing seasons. I do take it down each May and store it away until I need it again in December.

If you are in Dubai, you can also check out Amazon UAE for local vendors or ship from the US for a small fee.

You may also be able to purchase bird netting at Ace, Speedex, Daiso, Warsan garden souk, Satwa garden centers, and Dragonmart but stocks may vary.

Please follow my gardening account on Instagram for more frequent garden updates.

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My first tomato harvest of the season! . Woo hoo! . All these tomatoes would have been eaten by birds were it not for the protective netting I put up last week. See previous post for netting photos. . . . . . . . . #instagardeners #instagardening #gardenblog #gardenbloggers #urbangardening #growsomethinggreen #mydubaigarden #gardeningindubai #dubaigarden #dubaigardening #desertgardening #desertgarden #organicgardening #organicgarden #rootingplants #vegetablegarden #vegetablegardening #backyardgardening #raisedbedgarden #raisedbedgardening #raisedgardenbeds #squarefootgarden #squarefootgardening #tomatonetting #birdnetting #tomatoharvest

A post shared by Sandy (@mydubaigarden) on Feb 9, 2020 at 12:28am PST

Happy Gardening!

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