9 tricks to keep birds out of your garden

Since birds like a lot of the same foods we grow for ourselves—and lack the good manners to leave some for others—use these easy and effective tactics to keep them away.

• Use 1.5 centimetre  mesh to keep birds from pecking the fruit.
• Build a framework to hold the netting one foot away from the branch tips—so birds can't reach in—and staple the netting to the top and sides.

Use netting to keep birds from nabbing ripe cherries, too. Dwarf trees aren't difficult to cover.

• Cover row crops, such as strawberries, from birds with 1.5 centimetre mesh rigged over hoops.
• Tie the ends of the mesh around stakes and anchor the sides with bricks or stones.
• You can also use the hoops to support sheer cloth or floating row covers to protect crops against insects. Be sure to bury or securely weight the edges.

Nothing scares birds off better than dangling aluminum pie pans.

• String them up in pairs (to make noise) and you won't have to worry about finding nibbled apples or peaches come harvest.

• Enlist the help of children to make an old-fashioned scarecrow stuffed with straw.
• It will be more effective if you hang streamers of shiny or reflective material from its arms.
• Keep birds wary by frequently changing the scarecrow's location, pose and clothing.

Helpful tip: If you wait until your crops are ripe to install scarecrows, birds will already be familiar with your crops and will be more difficult to deter.

• Tie rubber snakes and lizards among the branches of fruit trees to keep birds from coming close.
• Move them to your vegetable garden when the fruit harvest is over.

Cut a length of hose and lay it in your grass snake-style. Birds will steer clear.

They make good bird deterrents and look cute in the garden, too.

• Move them around from time to time so the birds don't figure out the game too quickly.

A plastic or inflatable owl or falcon perched atop a roof or fence can deter many destructive birds, which mistake it for a real predator.

Paint a few dozen walnut shells bright red and scatter them through the strawberry patch before the berries ripen.

• By the time the fruit is ready for harvest, local birds will have learned to stay away from these unpalatable red globes.