Note: This column first ran in August 2018.
If you are a local gardener who has a vegetable garden or fruit trees, you know that it is peak harvest time now. We should be reaping quite a bounty but I continue to hear reports of produce lost or damaged by critters who relish fresh produce just as much as we do.
In the garden of one of my neighbors, she’s finding damage on her oranges. In another neighbor’s garden, a nectarine tree was covered with fruit nearly ready to pick when squirrels suddenly moved in and took all but a very few. Other gardeners are noticing that birds are eating much of their berry crop. In my own garden, as the tomatoes ripen, “someone” takes one or two bites out of each red fruit, always at night, then moves on to do the same to any other tomato beginning to ripen, spoiling each piece of fruit.
It can seem like a war zone as we try to save at least some of our hard-earned harvest for our own use. But how do we determine who is doing the damage, especially if it happens at night, and then, how do we protect our harvests so that we get at least a fair share but do it in an environmentally-friendly way?
Bird netting or Remay can prevent damage in many cases. If fruit trees have been kept small (the recommended practice for a home orchard), it is fairly easy to encase them in netting for the period when the fruit is ripening. The netting may discourage squirrel, rat and bird damage, though the wily squirrels and rats will find a way inside the net unless it is very carefully and thoroughly installed, leaving no openings.
For those who grow the smaller fruits, such as blueberries or raspberries, covering the plants with Remay is an option but a permanent wire mesh “cage” can offer long-term protection, not only to safeguard the harvest but to prevent deer damage. Some people also have had good results by spraying their plants with repellents. Some of the commercially-made repellents claim to be safe to use on edibles right up until harvest though they usually contain what is euphemistically called “putrescence of egg solids” (rotten eggs); read directions carefully if you want to try this. You can also easily make your own repellent. A quick web search turned up the recipes for a number of repellents, most using some combination of herbs, hot peppers and detergent.
I can’t attest to their effectiveness against small animals though when I’ve noticed deer damage, I have had excellent success using several of the commercially-made deer repellent sprays, especially Not Tonight Deer. On reading the lists of ingredients in the sprays intended to repel rodents, most contained the same ingredients as those made for deer control (including the rotten eggs), making me suspect that a deer repellent might be just as effective as one sold specifically for rodent control. Some gardeners swear by shiny objects hung in their plants to scare off animal thieves but in my experience, the animals rapidly learn that the objects pose no real threat.
Some sleuthing on my part pointed strongly to rats as the culprits damaging my tomatoes, mostly because the damage always occurred at night when squirrels and birds aren’t active. Netting the plants is impractical, and anyway, I’m not convinced that rats would not quickly find a way to get inside a net. I tried setting spring traps under the plants but ants quickly found and ate all the bait so that was not successful. (The traps could be set on a brick that sits inside a water-filled saucer so that the water prevents the ants from accessing the bait but I haven’t yet tried this.) What does seem to work, at least so far, is to pick the fruit when it first develops a bit of color, rather than leaving it on the plant until fully ripe. (The tomatoes will finish ripening perfectly well in my kitchen.) The rats apparently have gourmet taste buds and don’t seem interested in green tomatoes.
And this suggestion from reader Jeff near Corralitos: ”I had similar problems with my tomatoes getting taken overnight just as they were ripe enough to eat. With a trail camera, I discovered wood rats were the culprits. I bought a live trap. I caught a rat a day for four days, then a mouse a day for three more. I live in a rural area so there are plenty of wooded places to release the rodents. I leave the trap set and have caught more rats sporadically, but I have no more tomato issues. I grow my plants in containers that I raised up off the deck about 20 inches which also helps.”
Air quality
Meanwhile, garden centers in the Monterey Bay area have reduced hours due to air quality related to wildfires. Ray Schmidt, manager of San Lorenzo Garden Center, recommends calling nurseries before going in.
Garden tips are provided courtesy of horticulturist Sharon Hull of the San Lorenzo Garden Center. Contact her at 831-423-0223.
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August 28, 2020 at 06:02AM
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Sharon Hull, This Week in the Garden | Protecting fruit trees from sneaky critters - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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