The birds stay away, but I have some doubt about their effect on other creatures. My daughter had a bearded dragon for six months, and brings him when she comes home. He has a lot of muscle problems from being treated badly the first year and a half, basically staying in a box under the bed of some kids. He is cold blooded and needs heat to survive. He is three year old when she got him. When it was hot last week we took him to the backyard. He was like a kid in a fantasy place. It was so funny. My daughter never thought he could run that fast. He gets to go to the backyard when it is hot now. The problem is, it seems like he likes the sound from the repellers, follows it and rests peacefully under the grapevine where there are three of them making noise.
There are some grasshoppers so we put window screen on the enclosure that has shade cloth to stop them from eating the fruits and veggies. Inside we have blueberries, Prime Ark Freedom blackberries, they have no thorn to protect the fruits, cherry tomatoes, so there will be no hornworms, lettuce, and I will add snow peas later.
Outside the cucumbers and beans start setting fruits. I havenât planted veggies for a while, I donât know what kind of protection they will need later.
The chicken wire stopped the squirrels but the rats could go through. Only the 1/4" hardware cloth stops them. The trick was to installed them firmly at the bottom, but loose at the top, it was too high for me to tight them together anyway, so they canât turn 90 degree in midair to get in. There is still a creature comes in at night on the roof sometimes with some hand-like front claws that can open things with loose lid. I put these one inch wraps around the trunks and didnât lose any fruits or fruitlets. My daughter is very happy now because she can leave the pet going free in the backyard safely during the day, because no other creatures can get in or out.
That is true, but it comes very late at night I donât want to go out to check because there are so many bugs. That is one of the reasons I replaced the bird netting around the veggie enclosure with window screen, because it ripped the former one apart to get in for the blueberries. It is pretty big because I could hear the movements on the roof if I wasnât sleeping.
There was so many aphids on the apple and pear trees the last few days. The nurseries around donât have any lady bugs left. I have been working to stop the ants and remove the aphids manually. It is hard to have even the borax mixture around with the bearded dragon on some days. He licks the ground every time he starts walking so I have to make sure that there is nothing on the ground that can make him sick.
I use the Corona LR 3460 Long Reach Cut ânâ Hold Pruner to remove any leaves with ants or bugs. It works very well. If you do it right, the leaves can be drop directly into the trash can so you donât have to touch anything. As of today, there are much less aphids after I used some children chalk, not the chemical ones, to draw some barriers around the trees or the saucers to stop the ants from coming.
The tag says âPlayboyâ floribunda rose.
Roses are year round in socal. People prune them to a few 6" stems from the ground in winter. I use them as a fence everywhere so I only remove the dead flowers. There are some aphids and rose rust on the leaves during the winter that I remove. They last a long time and make the neighbors happy. The one below is âFrench roseâ that my sister gave me more than twenty years ago.
I spent yesterday hanging the vinegar solution on each of the apple and pear trees for codding moth. I will bag or put the tulle on later but that will take more time. I donât see the codding moth in the solution yet. However, the ants like it and ignore farming the aphids so it is less messy for me to get rid of the aphids
To make the solution: 1 cup vinegar, 1 cup sugar, 1 gallon water
I fill up about 1 inch from the bottom of small disposable water bottles and hang one or two on the branch(es) of each tree.
The cloudiness and humidity were so unpredictable, I didnât want to put on the tulle for fear of aphids and fungi, so I tried to thin and bag the apple and pear trees. There were a lot of ants but they were mostly on the vinegar solution bottle, and the codding moth damage were less than expected. Always try to find an excuse for not thinning much, I tasted some of the apples and decided to keep some extra to use for fruit salad later when they get bigger. The exception was Fuji which wonât taste good until they are ripe.
These are the picture for Ghost apple. There was one about the same size that had codding moth damage but it already tasted tangy but nice
Since we had the bearded dragon on the ground during the weekend, I havenât seen any birds on the plum trees that are having ripening fruit, or walking birds, even when he wasnât here. Those trees are on the side that has no hardware cloth on the fencing since it was too high up for me. I donât know whether it is a coincidence but I am really happy because they donât have any protection for the fruits. I read that birds of prey eat bearded dragon so we actually watch out for him, but maybe he looks so big and grumpy and scares the birds away.
We really didnât have room for any more tree, but for a change, my husband said this Superior plum was calling his name when we recently went to a local nursery. I know it needs a lot of chilling hours so I never considered, but it has a lot of fruits and has been grown locally for at least two years. He said the not quite ripe one tasted like a Splash pluot.
It is amazing how a tree recovers. We have an old big Japanese pear tree in the back yard. About two weeks ago, within a few days, the whole tree was covered with aphids and bugs. It took me two days with the long pruner and a step ladder to defoliate half the tree, sometimes cutting off the end of the branches that were too high. That half has new leaves and flowers now, so today I worked on the other half. It was quite exhausting, but I am so happy that we didnât lose the tree. I donât remember name of the variety but it gives the best of all the pears we have.
It seems like the animals are so hungry now.The one that went on the roof at night finally found and ate some nectarine and grape.
We removed the ladder that my husband leaned against the open patio, and I stayed up until 3am the last few days to observe and try to stop whatever came. I had to stay inside the house because the neighbor reported that the coyote came into her back yard mid morning to go after the dogs, and they canât leave the dogs alone outside anymore.
The noise on the roof would start around 1am, coming from the part facing the street then go to the back yard.
The first night I turned the backyard lights on/off and it would go away and come back. After I went to sleep, without the ladder it went down and up, tearing up the shade cloth under the patio top. I guess it didnât have much time to find food before daylight came.
The second day, I fixed the shade cloth and put hardware cloth where I thought it came down.
Apparently, after I went to sleep, it couldnât get down to the yard. It was so mad it went back to the front yard, crushed the hardware cloth and chicken wire on top of the gate and the block wall, and got in. The rods and chicken wire at the upper corner of the hillside were bent down. I donât know whether that animal or the coyote did it.
We fixed everything, put window screen on the outside of the gate, and more hardware cloth anywhere we could think of. We have roses at the bottom of the wall even the squirrels gave up on that side last year.
I think it didnât get on the roof last night. Tonight I am not so sure why the motion sensor light is on but I donât see anything.
Do you know why it can climb up to the roof top, but canât get down to the ground? There is a big Santa Rosa tree touching the side of the patio. It would need a big animal to crush the hardware cloth and chicken wire.
Maybe we have to set up the camera system again. My worst nightmare is something eating the bearded dragon.
The bearded dragon is cold blooded and needs heat so it stays inside in itâs tank at night. The day after the animal got in through the gate, it refused to get down on the ground, and clung on to my daughter at first. It didnât go to the gate section since then, maybe it can smell something, as I do briefly sometimes. I was afraid that the creature would come, stay, and hide during the daytime so I have been thinning the trees and we check on everything frequently. I didnât tell my daughter anything though.
Last night some thing still went on the roof but sounded like a smaller animal. We will set up the camera later. My sister suggested that it may be a two leg creature, but I donât think anyone would go through that much trouble for the fruits. Long time ago, they broke open the other bigger iron gate at night, but put the parts back after finding nothing to steal. I just put a chain and a lock on that one since then.
Thanks for bringing back the link. It was so funny it saved my sanity at that time,
I am guessing different animals will come and go, and be able to go on the roof no matter what I do. As long as the fruit lost is minimal and the pet is safe, there is not much I can/should do. We will have the camera on a few days for peace of mind, and then let it go.
Thank you for the suggestion. We have a four camera system that can be connected to the monitor inside the house. The drawback is the length of the electric cords needed and hence the setting locations.
This cordless camera sounds good. I will ask my husband to check if we can get it.
Thanks again for you help.
