In the past I have had problems with all kinds of animals eating the garden. Last year my ultimate garden nemesis was the Blue Jay! Blue Jays ate all of our corn seedlings and then started on our apples. I was able to scare them away from the apple trees with shiny silver CDs.
CDs are the modern day equivalent to pie pans. My Grandpa used to save tin or aluminum pie plates all year long to use as scarecrows. Today, it is easier to get shiny CDs or DVDs.
You can save old CDs or DVDs that you don't want anymore or save them from things like AOL offers. If you can't find enough to recycle, you can buy cheap CD-Rs
In case you think Blue Jays are pretty and don't share in my disdain for them, I'll show you what they started doing to our young apples:
Something had to be done so I took about a ten foot length of twine, tied CDs to each end and threw the whole thing over the apple tree. Here is what it looked like after I got 100 CDs on the tree!
Pictures really don't capture just how crazy this looked. The CD's really reflected in the sunlight. They definitely scared the birds (and our neighbors at first).
It actually was pretty funny. At about 7:30 each evening when the sun was shining and the wind was blowing, we had an instant disco ball! Bright lights moved across the walls in our house even. It took a while to get used to.
Unfortunately it was possible to get used to. After a few weeks an adventurous Jay again went after apples not close to a CD. I kept adding more and more CDs until all birds stayed away for the most part. The Squirrels on the other hand eventually learned that the CDs weren't a threat.
So I caution you to not hang your CDs sooner than needed, and move them around if possible. This year, I plan to hang them on posts in and around the garden. that way I can move their location at night every few days. Hopefully CDs will keep the birds away from the corn too.
Have you ever tried this? Do you have any other strange ways to scare away birds from your garden? Please share your ideas.
If you've never used CDs in place of pie pans before, give it a try. It really does look cool!
Keep on Growing!
- Marc
My apple trees are a little bit smaller than yours, so it's not too much trouble to cover my apples with footies, the disposable socks you get when trying on shoes at the store.
This has prevented the squirrels and the birds from eating all but a few apples. But it's really for protecting the apples from apple curculio and other insects. The squirrels take a bite every once in a while, but decide that the footy tastes bad and stop eating. See my articles at http://wp.me/p1i3Ar-Em and http://wp.me/p1i3Ar-GH for the details.
Posted by: Bill Brikiatis | April 08, 2011 at 07:54 AM
Wow!This is really a unique method of keeping the birds away from your garden and i have heard about it first time and i think it is a perfect methods since it is easily affordable and a simple method of keeping birds away
Posted by: Dacey | November 04, 2011 at 08:28 AM