Nicole Johnsey Burke explains that squirrels and birds damage tomatoes because they're thirsty, not hungry. Set up a birdbath or water tray nearby to give them what they actually want. If that doesn't work, build a native-plant living fence to attract predators that eat the pests.
Chapters
If squirrels and birds are getting to your tomatoes before you do, this quick tip is going to help. I've been gardening for 15 years. I've been helping people garden for 11 years, and this is probably the most common question that comes up, which is, how do I keep squirrels and birds out of my tomato plants? I've struggled with this exact same problem, especially when I was gardening in Houston, Texas, and over the years, I have figured out a hack that works for me, and I think it'll work for you too. So just for context, most of my garden is dried up. It is the end of summer, it's super hot, we're in a drought, and almost all my plants are dying back. But my tomato plants, they're hanging on, and surprisingly, almost all the fruit on these plants is spotless, untouched by pests. I don't have everything figured out when it comes to preventing pests in the garden, but there are a few things that I think I've finally gotten right. So the first question I've learned to ask about any kind of pest in the garden is, is there a way to bring the predator of that pest into my garden or at least suggest that that predator could be somewhere nearby. So I did a whole video about bunnies in the garden, and I dive into this whole topic. So if you want to learn about preventing other pests, you should go and watch that one because I dive really deep into this whole idea of creating a place for predators to live or at least suggesting to pests that the predators are nearby. However, That philosophy or theory in pest prevention, it doesn't work quite as well for this particular situation because squirrels, their predators are generally like owls or snakes, and it's hard to really prove that they are in the garden. And then birds, they can kind of just fly away from a predator, so it's pretty hard to keep them from the garden. The second most effective method to prevent pests from getting to your harvest before you do is to think about what it is that the pest is looking for. Like, are they hungry? Are they looking for a place to hide, or are they thirsty? And in this particular case, what I found, especially when I was gardening in Houston, Texas, is I would often find a tomato that had been bitten a little— just a little part of the tomato had been broken through the skin, but then the rest of the tomato was totally fine, like totally untouched. And it made me so angry. Like, if you're going to take my tomato, at least take the whole thing. And soon I realized that it wasn't actually the flesh of the tomato that squirrels and birds were hunting for. It was the seeds. The juice. They were thirsty, especially in the middle of summer, especially when it was hot, especially when it hadn't rained. And this is the case for a lot of pests that come to our garden. The thing we think they want, which may be the juicy tomato, is not actually the thing. They're trying to survive in the wild, and so they're just making sure that they don't dehydrate. And a lot of times what they really want is water. So a hack with any kind of pest in the garden is to try to figure out, is there a way for you to meet that need before they get to your garden? Is there someplace in the yard that you could give them what they need, or something close to your garden where you could meet that need so that they don't go hunting for it among your treasured plants? And in this case, I have just the answer. If you're having trouble with all kinds of pests in your garden, I made a pest-specific guide. It outlines what kinds of pests, what they're looking for, how to deter them. You can get the whole guide right below this video. I first started to think about this when I learned about creating a wildlife habitat. In the checklist for a wildlife habitat, one of the key parts is having a water source, and I thought, you know what, I don't have a water source in my garden. So when I was designing my kitchen garden, I decided to put a birdbath right in the center, and this would be the water source for any wildlife that wanted to come through. I've found that over the seasons, I've had less and less trouble with wildlife taking a bite of my tomatoes, and I can look out here At different parts of the day, and I'll see all kinds of wildlife taking little baths in here, drinking. I actually just— even as I filled this up, there was a yellow jacket in here drinking water out of the birdbath. A couple things about the birdbath. Number one, it is very hard to keep it clean. There are a couple of hacks. There is a certain type of grass that you can put into the birdbath, and that will keep the water fairly clean. I just honestly rinse mine out pretty regularly. The other way is to have a little bubbler like I have here. You can get solar-powered ones online. And this keeps the water moving, which is great for keeping it fresh and clean for the wildlife. Your water source can come in any shape and size. It could be something as magnificent as a big water fountain, or it could be something as simple as just taking the tray of a pot, filling it up with some rocks and some water, and then just making sure that it stays fresh with fresh water and is in obvious places in your garden where wildlife can get to it. Or you can just simply add a birdbath just like this. And keeping it full is not that hard, especially if you're out in your garden often and you're watering it. You can just head over to the birdbath and fill it up regularly. Now, this is definitely not foolproof, and I still get some of my tomatoes stolen from the garden, but ever since I added a water feature to my backyard garden, I have more and more tomatoes that are literally perfect and pest-free. If you set up a water feature and you're still not seeing success, you may have to take it to the next level and build like a physical barrier around your plants, some kind of cage or fence. That to me is my last resort. What I'd like to do instead is I like to create living fences around my garden. So in that idea of creating a wildlife habitat, there are other things that wildlife are looking for, things like a place to raise their young and a place to have shelter and a source of food. So creating a native plant living fence around your garden is actually bringing pest protection to a totally new level. Again, it is not a failproof system, but it is so much better than all those chemical sprays. So I made an entire video lesson showing you how I create a living fence and how it protects all my garden from wildlife and gives me tons of big harvests, even at the end of the season. You can watch the whole thing right here.
