One of the first things to ripen are the fruit trees. If birds are a problem try this: find some pieces of a broken mirror and glue a length of heavy string down the back side and an inch or two up the front. Hang your mirrors with one on each side about halfway up in the tree. Birds will still come to check out the trees but will very seldom land and never stay long enough to have a meal at your expense. If you have enough broken pieces, glue two together with the mirror side out and the heavy string in between the pieces. Baling twine works great for this and it can be flattened and still remain strong.
Apparently, the flash from the mirror or the constantly changing scene frightens them or they think what they briefly see is a predator. Whatever the reason, they will leave the fruit alone as long as the mirrors are hung in such a way so they can move in the wind. This also works for berries, strawberries in particular because they are on the ground and much easier to get without dealing with thorns.
Next time you have a problem with bugs, try sprinkling ordinary powdered cooking garlic around your plants. Garlic powder deters aphids and other small insects. We seldom have bug problems and garden 100 percent organic by interplanting with plants the insects don’t like. Garlic and dill are both good insect deterrents. Just sprinkle a few seeds in with your other plantings. You can also keep the bugs at bay by not mono-cropping. Sew various types of plants together that are beneficial to each other. A very good book on which plants are mutually beneficial is “Carrots Love Tomatoes” by Louise Riotte.
If you grow corn and have problems with raccoons, try the following tricks:
When you plant your corn, put a Kentucky Wonder bean seed in each hill of corn. The fuzz on the bottom side of the bean leaf gets on and in the raccoon’s nose, they don’t like it and will leave the corn alone. Cucumbers, squash, pumpkins and anything that has a prickly stem will keep raccoons from eating your corn. This and the next trick also works to keep cats from using your corn patch as their “digs.” Put a lime in a burlap bag and hold the top closed and walk around the perimeter of the garden while shaking the bag, leaving a white trail behind you. This needs to be done just before the corn is ripe and after moderate to heavy rains for raccoons but as soon as the ground is worked for cats.
If you like garlic and corn but have a problem with birds eating the corn seed after you plant, try planting some garlic in the same place that you plan to plant the corn. You have to plant the garlic first and early enough in order for the garlic to sprout before planting the corn. The birds will pull the garlic sprouts out and you’ll have to stick them back in the ground or even replant some. When you plant the corn, the birds think it’s garlic, which they’ve found not to their liking and leave it alone.
Sunflower seeds have a lot of beneficial properties but can be a bear to hull. Try using a grain mill with the spacing between the burrs wider than for grinding grains, you’ll probably have to experiment some. Properly set, this method will break open every hull, leaving most of the kernels intact. A few kernels will be ground into meal but they can be sifted out and used in a green drink or to make seed milk.
After the kernels are broken out of the shell, stir the mixed hulls and kernels around in a bucket of water; skim off the floating hulls, pour off the water and dry the kernels and meal or eat immediately.
If you refer back to my articles from the past six months, you’ll find items that you can grow that have medicinal properties. If you research them you’ll find that most also repel bugs in your garden. Nature planned it that way, at least that’s my opinion. Interplant medicinal plants, keep bugs at bay and have health beneficials as close as your yard.
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