alright! this is john kohler with growingyourgreens.com.today i've got another exciting episode for you coming at you from my backyard gardenand today we're going to talk about a problem i know i have and probably you guys have also.that's why you're watching this video, that's why you clicked on it. it's the birds!what we're looking at here is actually my tree collard plants that every year they seemto go to flower which they're actually not supposed to and they make seeds. they makelots of amazing seeds but unfortunately i failed to cover them up and basically thebirds come here, they peck the little pods, the seed pods and they eat the seeds becauseafter all that's their natural food. so i'm glad i could feed the birds some ofmy extra tree collard seeds. some of them
i do get to save, some of them fall on theground because they don't get each and every one, looks like there's actually a lot onthe ground that i could sweep up. sometimes they fall onto the bed next door and theyget all these little sprouts come up. so i always have continual plants but i don't haveany to send out to you guys in any large quantities because the birds get them.so beside the birds getting my tree collard seeds, sometimes they'll pick out seeds thati plant in the garden under soil and sometimes they'll even eat baby plants. but most ofall, what pisses me off the most is when they eat my damn tomatoes. so let's go over tomy little tomato patch and share with you guys how i'm going to prevent the birds fromeating my tomatoes for just one buck.
so now we're looking at my tomato bed here,i think i have maybe almost a half dozen plants in a four food circle or raised bed. i gotsome, actually smallerish tomato cages on them, they're about four feet tall and i gotall these little cherry tomatoes coming up on me. so what happens is on these littlebaby cherry tomatoes that you guys are seeing the birds will see that they're red, they'llsee that they're ripe, they'll see that there's food, they contain seeds, they contain waterand birds in nature, especially here in the desert they are hungry little creatures.they'll go in there and they'll peck it once or twice and they'll go somewhere else. meanwhilei got pecked tomatoes which is not good for me because i don't like to eat pecked tomatoes,sometimes i'll cut off the pecked half, compost
that and then i'll eat the good half. butwhy do that when you can protect your tomatoes with just something as cheap as one buck?this is what i got from the dollar store right here. it's actually this stuff, it's actuallycalled the garden netting. this garden netting was at the 99 only store, they have storesi think in california, nevada, i've seen them in texas and maybe some other states. a lotof other dollar stores may carry some things like this and some others may not. if you'rea dollar store owner, yeah carry gardening stuff man, us gardeners will be buying yourstuff especially for a buck to protect our valuable tomatoes.so what that this garden netting is do, is just create a barrier over my plants so thatthe birds can't get in there. this is a very
simple solution. i mean if you got some oldfish netting if you're no longer fishing and the holes are small enough, hey use it foryour garden. basically anything you can put over it to protect your plants from the birdsis a good thing. they also have fruit tree netting at like a standard nursery and whatnot. it's going to cost you a lot more money than a buck but your fruits are definitelyworth it. so we're just going to go ahead and unfurlthis stuff right here, see how long this is. it kind of stretches out, look at that! idon't know if you guys could see that, this is nice and huge. so you could just wrap thisaround, tie it with some twine or something like that. but i got something else at thedollar store, but i actually usually have
a lot hanging out. so i have extra ones, buti got these plant clips. so these plant clips i normally use them tobasically stake up my tomatoes, my peppers and other plants, cucumbers, and i have somany around here, just hanging out. i'm just going to use these to clip down the nettingto my tomatoes, to the cages so that i could actually just easily remove it and get itin there and actually harvest my tomatoes when i want to. so let's go ahead and putthis on and wrap it around. alright so as you guys can see i've been workingon getting this netting stuff all the way around my tomato cages, it's working prettygood and i have man a lot of material left. this is really cool, i started trying to putit around and this bird netting is actually
pretty cheap netting stuff, i mean what doyou expect for a buck right. i got a little bit more time than money.so yeah, this is working good but you have to untangle this and furl it out and be realcareful, it kind of gets, your plants kind of get stuck on it so you kind of got to likepush all your plants in and keep them inside so they're not running into the netting andthat could be a problem later if you're not paying attention, you know your plants willgrow through the netting and then the birds will able to get the stuff on the outsidethen you won't be able to get it on the inside to take it off. so you just got to pay attentionto that. the technique i've been using actually, i'vebeen going around to the bottom of the netting,
basically it's i don't, it doesn't tell methe overall like length, but i figure if i stretch it out it'll probably be about like6 feet tall which is an amazing deal. it's like 6 feet tall by 32 feet, so that's a hugepiece of netting for just a buck. now, they do have this netting that i boughtwhich is in the long skinny pack and that's the good deal one, 32 feet. they also hada different kind of netting that was like in a square pack, that was significantly lessnetting for the same price, although the netting wasn't as thin, it was a little bit more thick,but i want to cover the maximum square foot area for the minimal cost. so this is theone that i got. so anyways i went around the whole bottom, pinned that up, i kind of drapedof the top and i got to pull this tight and
use all the rest at the end to go up the topto make just a big enclosure so that the birds can't get in there. i'm going to go aheadand finish this up and come back at you when i'm all done.alright so as you guys could see i got the netting all the way wrapped around my tomatoesand now they're protected against the birds. i had so much extra netting actually i couldof went double high, so actually i just put a cage upside down in the middle one onlyto make like a little house or round hut shape, although maybe later i'll go back in, putupside down cages on each one of these guys and make it double high so that my plantshave more room to grow. the easy thing about this when i want to get in there i just clipoff the bottom and roll it up and that's where
all my tomatoes are at the moment, they'renear the bottom, roll it up, get the good ones, roll it back down and then let my tomatoesripen up without the birds getting them. now whether you guys have problems with birdsand tomatoes or whether you guys got gophers or rabbits this is an easy way to protectyour plants, simply put a covering on them, you don't need to use any kind of like anti-birddeterrent, streamers, ribbons flying in the air, pinwheels, fake owls, although you couldget an ally cat and let them roam your garden, they'll probably get the birds. but you justneed to protect them and cover them with some netting like this, i got for a buck or ifyou got the real stuff go to a nursery get the real bird netting, that stuff's a loteasier to work with because it's lot more
thick then this thin stuff, but hey, if thislasts me a season and i get tons of tomatoes out of my garden and the birds don't for adollar i think it's definitely worth it. the other thing you could do of course isuse something like chicken wire to surround your garden, build that around your wholegarden to keep them out and if you got things like gophers and whatnot, put chicken wireeven a bigger, thicker gage wire on the bottom of your raised bed so that they can't getin from underneath. there's always a way to protect your garden naturally without usingany kind of chemicals, pesticides or herbicides, anything like this by simply protecting them.that's why you guys lock your doors at night right? so the burglars don't come and breakinto your house and steal your stuff. i don't
want the birds stealing my hard work and eatingmy delicious beyond organic tomatoes and neither do you.so now you guys know how to protect your tomatoes for a buck, if you don't have the 99 onlystores near you check your other dollar stores or you'll just have to go to the nursery andspend more money, maybe some website online maybe sells this stuff for a couple bucks,but nonetheless there's always a way to protect your food today, all animals do this.so if you guys enjoyed this episode hey please give me a thumbs up to let me know. also besure to click that subscribe link right down below to be notified of new and upcoming episodesi have coming out about every three to four days. also be sure to check my past episodesi have over 1100 episodes teaching you guys
all aspects on how you guys could grow yourown food, protect it from birds and bugs and pests and all kinds of stuff, everything youguys need to know so that you guys could be successful at biologic, organic gardening.so once again my name is john kohler with growingyourgreens.com. we'll see you nexttime and until then remember keep on growing. latest episode on growing your greens!alright! this is john kohler with growingyourgreens.com. today we've got another exciting episode foryou coming at you from my beautiful backyard garden on a beautiful spring day. summer'salmost here! hopefully you guys got your garden's planted out
