How do I Stop Birds from Eating My Vegetable Seeds?

They are one of those creatures for home vegetable gardeners that you love to have them around, but at the same time wish they would leave your home vegetable garden alone. They are birds. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors and of course eating habits.

In my area sparrows and robins are the most common birds. On occasion we will see a cardinal or a blue jay and if we get really lucky an oriole that somehow got lost to where ever it was originally headed will stop by. I am no bird expert but I do know that birds can be extremely beneficial to a home vegetable garden and detrimental as well, especially when you start your seeds outdoors.

I have a couple of solutions of my own to deter the birds from eating my seeds, but I wanted to get the input of our vegetable gardening fans of Facebook. So I simply posted this question, “How do I stop birds from eating my vegetable seeds?” Here are the results of this question.

Let’s start with the aged old, scarecrow. Now I did receive a number of different ideas of making a good scarecrow, but the consensus was to make one in such a way that the arms were straight out, parallel to the ground, and that you should hang something off of the arms that would blow in the wind and make some noise, such as aluminum or tin pans or windsocks with chimes.

Bruce suggested what seemed to work for him and that was the use of rubber snakes. I have never personally tried it so I can’t say for sure whether or not this method will work, but Bruce said to move the snake around to different parts of that garden. He seems to have success using this method and you can pick up some rubber snakes at your local dollar store.

You can also create a cover for the seeds by using plastic water bottles, empty gallon plastic milk containers and so on with the bottoms cut off to create a greenhouse type of affect for your seeds. It also prevents the birds from getting to them.

And of course the ultimate solution if you do not want the birds to eat your seeds is to start your seeds indoors and when they are large enough, move them to the outdoors. If you never put the food source there in the first place you shouldn’t have any issues with the birds eating your seeds.

Yes birds can wreak havoc on your garden if they swoop in and eat your seeds, but birds are a necessity because they also eat the harmful insects that a vegetable garden attracts (harmful to the garden of course). Follow some of these ideas mentioned here and you will be well on your way to making sure the birds are your allies in keeping a healthy, safe and fruitful home vegetable garden.

About the Author
Mike is the author of the book ”Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person” and the administrator for the largest vegetable gardening group on Facebook. Mike can be reached via his website AveragePersonGardening.com.