Using Decoys in the Garden...Tomatoes

Early this summer, I was watching my tomatoes ripen. I was very excited and had my eyes on one in particular. However, just before I was ready to pick it...I went out to find it with a large hole in it, pecked by a bird! Argh! Apparently, I wasn't the only one watching the tomato ripening. I am pretty sure it was a blue jay, specifically, the blue jay that was hanging around my garden watching me lament over my tomato!

An occurrence like this puts me on the war path pretty quickly. I like birds, and had no intention of doing them harm...but I also had no intention of sharing any more tomatoes. They have plenty of other food available to eat.

So! I went to the store, walked to the party section, and chose a couple bags of small red balloons. It was time to decorate the garden! I went home, found some string, and blew the balloons up to be a little larger than tomato size. I then tied a red balloon to each tomato cage. I thought it looked pretty convincing, and was really wishing I could see the hopeful birds land on the tomato cage and start pecking away, only to be repeatedly disappointed. I didn't see any birds get tricked, but my husband walked in the garden and he thought the balloons were tomatoes at first..."Oh, Wow! Huh? Ummm...never mind..." While I didn't see any birds get disappointed, I did find several popped balloons, and for the most part, my tomatoes were left alone after that!