How to Keep the Birds from Eating Your Tomatoes

Tomato Runway, originally uploaded by espeedy123.

Bring them inside!

Is there any disappointment greater than finding the tomato for which you waited and worked and watched HALF EATEN BY A BIRD!?!?

This sad situation has deflated me more than once. Solutions I have heard about include creating physical barriers like nets, hanging fake snakes, and tieing old CDs near to the plant to blind the birds with sunlight.

The net sounds like a lot of trouble, and I doubt the effectiveness of fakery. The grackels around here seem smart and plentiful.  I heard about my solution on the Neil Sperry radio show.  Am I allowed to love the Dirt Doctor and still respect Neil???

He suggests bringing the tomatoes in just as they start to turn and letting them ripen on a sunny windowsill.

So far this has worked out great. They seem to turn red in a day or two. These photos are from a week or so ago and I have around 40 newer ones out there now, mainly from a single “Husky Red Cherry” tomato plant.  I have been eating a cherry tomato and cucumber salad every day.

I imagine they do not taste quite as nice as straight off the vine, but if I don’t wish to share with the birds this is the best I’ve figured out thus far.

Does anyone else have suggestions for keeping birds out?