Garden pests

[Andy Mac]

Hi there,
When I'm not in the shed, I enjoy pottering about the garden, especially growing vegetables. This season I have one particularly huge tomato plant, laden with green fruit, but kept finding great chunks missing from them:eek: . At first I thought it was rats, possums or maybe bandicoots, but on the way to my chook pen yesterday I found the culprit. A pair of King parrots were perched in the bush, snapping off fruit and eating them from their claws! This type of bird are not uncommon here, but its the first time I've seen them in the garden so I went back to get the camera. Of course that disturbed them, so not the closeup I was hoping on.
I don't mind losing the odd tomato to such beautiful pests, but they better leave some for me...:)

Cheers,

[fxst]

nice shot that :)
I dont have the bird problem I have mine being eaten by sleepy lizards and bluetongues but they only get the lower ones so heaps for us :D
Pete

[Clinton1]

I have/had the same problem down here, although its still too early for tomatoes:( .
Here though I plant tomatos that are green when ripe.
Green Zebra variety (green and yellow striped),one of the top in the taste test, and birds are confused by the colour and don't eat them. Tricky.

Obviously Qld birds are smarter?

Have you heard of www.diggers.com.au (http://www.diggers.com.au) - a heritage seed saving and plant propagating mob - beware the catalogue link, it'll tie up a 56K line for about 3 minutes.

[fxst]

I use the Qld mob www.greenharvest.com.au and also www.edenseeds.com.au same thing though heritage seeds as well.
Growing beefheart tommies at the moment not many seeds but heaps of flesh :)
trouble is the lizards love them too:(
Pete

[PuppyPaw]

yep had the same problem my self, best defense was stringing fishing line over the tomatoes and around them. I use big stakes.
Unfortunatly I took the same course of action at first, hoping for the best.
But unfortunatly my plants where desimated hahaha.

[TARLOX]

Try tying a couple of white plastic bags to the top of your stakes. These should flap around in the breeze and hopefully discourage the birds.