Birds - very hungry birds... at least I THINK it's birds!

OK, this will not do! I was watching three specific tomatoes, the biggest prettiest anyplace on the property, (not the ones in these photos - I mean some BIG RED ones!) waiting for that perfect day to pick them as a gift for my wife's boss, who LOVES fresh garden tomatoes. (I mean we all do, but some people get that dreamy look in their eyes and you just know - this is one of those REAL tomato people, and you MUST get them some killer tomatoes because they will REALLY appreciate it!) I went to get them today, and not one, but all three had been partially eaten by birds! They got into this partially ripened smaller one on another plant, and even chowed down on a couple of green ones! There must have been a small FLOCK in my plants this morning because they were fine last night!

The last time I grew tomatoes, I had this big plastic owl that I'd used for several years, with glass eyes and a sort of bobble head - pretty convincing! He was on a pole at the end of the tomatoes. I was not convinced he was doing his job, because occasionally I'd see a small hole pecked in a tomato. Apparently he was doing a lot better than I thought! So I went to the garage searching for my owl. I looked everywhere I could think of, both in the garage and out in the pool house, anywhere I might have put him, all the while with a gnawing nagging semi-memory that I may have been on a "We gotta get rid of some of this stuff" binge and tossed him, glass eyes and all! I'm pretty sure he's gone, because he's pretty easy to spot! Bummer!

Well, on to plan B for now I guess - I got some aluminum pie tins and some strips of aluminum foil and strung a line of hemp string from pole to pole across the tomatoes, and it looks like a horizontal silver mobile out there now. Raven is going to LOVE that when she comes home! The Beverly Hillbillies are farmin' again out by the cement pond! I might better go price another owl! She wasn't crazy about him, but compared to the foil parade, he's going to look pretty good!

I read where somebody stripped off a bunch of tape from old cassettes and tied it up in sort of a long pom pom and hung those around. Apparently it moves with the slightest breeze, and catches glints of light. Hmmm. I certainly have plenty of old cassettes around the recording studio. I don't know. Man, I'm really regretting losing the owl!


Uh oh! THIS could be another potential bandit if I ever get tardy with treats! Rock LOVES a good tomato, and just came wandering through the pampas grass after a swim! I remember in the old garden the first time he wandered through and found a tomato on the ground. It was like he couldn't believe it was real! He sniffed it and looked around and sniffed it some more, and finally took a bite, chewed it and swallowed, stared at it in disbelief, picked it up again and walked out with it, laid down in the grass and polished it off!

So from then on, every day he'd wander through the tomato plants searching the ground. I could never figure why he didn't grab one off the vines but he never would! Some kind of "if it's on the ground" Golden Retriever code I guess. Finally one day there was one that had burst open from sporadic watering - terrible drought that year, and water rationing - and he looked up at me like "Can I???" and I said "Go ahead" and he ever so carefully plucked it off the vine. As far as I know he's never taken one without permission.

This is the area that I plan to run some Fukuoka mounds in long rows like terraces next year, so I will probably consider some sort of rabbit fence around it. Maybe white "beach" picket fencing up next to the pampas grass, so it can be seen from the pool. My wife will like that, and may trade me that for allowing the rabbit fence on the other side! Hey, I'm always thinking! Always thinking! I love the look of the mounds - they should be laid out to follow the slope of the land to make best use of catching water, so end up looking like a maze or some ornamental garden! Have a look at my friend Ingrid's yard - this is an area that would not grow much of anything before, but within a year it will be a self replenishing oasis of plants! http://www.landscapingrevolution.com/ingrid_garden/frontyard_solstice2009.html