Fauna, Flora

Lions and tigers and bling oh my!

What’s scarier for a bird than lions or tigers? 

Silver shiny sparkly stuff! It’s their kryptonite.

Since part of my garden is in my front yard I figured banging aluminum pie pans weren’t the best idea for noise or aesthetics, so I decided to up the bling game.

(im)patiently waiting for these Maglia Rosa tomatoes to turn green

I’m usually pretty generous but for these homegrown goodies the more for me and less for the neighborhood wildlife = success. It only took me three years to figure out how to scare birds away from fruit!

Very appealing to 6-year-olds but great at repelling birds and squirrels, a few of these $9 kite tails saved my blueberries, ripe red tomatoes and figs…and made some kids smile too. The fastener easily snaps onto a wire cage or small branch, and the iridescent streamers are pretty fluttering in the breeze.

This summer I even had enough tomatoes to share a few with human neighbors. Especially when it was in trade for these amazingly delicious brown turkey figs.

Now if I could just figure out how to keep the fruit flies away from my Chicago Hardy open-eye figs. Comments are open for suggestions!

PS this explains why there aren’t any red tomatoes in the photos.