First year trying organza bags. It really didn’t take long at all for this small pear tree and the apple tree next to it. 10 minutes or so, if that. HOPING this works to keep the bugs out.
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I ended up with two (2) Seckel pears to bag. Blossom blast wiped out the lot of a very heavy bloom.
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@chadspur,
The real problem of my pears are not small bugs. Pears grow fast enough to squish any eggs deposited by bugs. It’s squirrels, groundhogs, opossums and raccoons that have taken my pears. Those bags are no match to them. Hope you don’t have these big pest issue.
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If they showed up this year, it would be the first surprisingly. Wasps tend to like the pears though. Hopefully they keep them at bay a bit.
Organza bags can protect against wasps if the bags do not touch the fruit. I use small organza bags on my figs against yellow jackets.
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If birds are the primary concern, I’m curious if this solution works (or not). My trees aren’t mature enough yet to worry about it, but eventually…
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That is one of the most fascinating ideas and articles anyone has ever given me- THank you so much!!! They sure make it sound like it works very well ! I am extremely excited to try that idea. I could certainly try it on a small level- like on one of my blueberry bushes, without much cost or trouble. I could mix a gallon or two in my hand sprayer and see how it goes. Its very hard for me to imagine it works well or you’d think everyone would know about it- even us backyard growers. But maybe not.
Anyone else ever heard of using sugar spray to ward off birds? Anyone tried it? Results???
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@thecityman,
It was discussed before but I could not remember here or at Gardenweb. Of course, I could not remember the rest!!
If it worked well, we would have heard more about it , wouldn’t we?
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Katie! That color is astonishing!!! 
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My thoughts exactly! People here seem to know most of the tricks. If birds could really be chased off with something as simple (and organic) as a sugar spray, surely people here would know about it. But that article really made it sound like it really works!!!
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@thecityman, @mamuang I wonder if the sugar works best at large scales, if it does at all. I also know a lot of stuff that works really well, you just don’t hear about it because people don’t like to change once they’ve got something that works well enough. Myself included.
That cartoon is funny Jay, mostly because its accurate. But surely we would accept a sugar spray if it really worked? You may have seen some of my desperately frustrated posts in recent days after I’d been out wrapping nets around my cherry trees only to turn around 5 minutes later and see that birds had somehow found their way inside!!! So believe me, I think I’d be open to sugar. You said you know some other stuff that works well…if you mean that works well for birds then start typing!!! I promise I’ll keep an open mind on ANY solution that works. I’ve tried pie pans, scare tape, fake owls, fake snakes, nets, tying my dog to the tree (its shady under it and he had lots of water and food and it was only for a few hours at a time), playing a loud radio, an old fashioned scare-crow, fishing line ran above and through trees, hanging compact disks ,and more. Only the nets worked more than a day or two but they have their own set of problems.
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Oh, man. I wish I could help on the birds, but I haven’t gotten that far along yet. I only just started getting plants in the ground this year. I have a multi-step plan for birds, though:
- Do nothing and hope for the best
- Try various scaring tactics
- Try netting
- Disentangle myself from the netting and throw it away in frustration
- Try to convince my cats to hang out under the bushes
- Swear ineffectually at the birds
- Camp out next to bushes 24/7 while they ripen
- Buy berries at the store
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I go for number 8, that way i have everything for myself, and no labor, no sleepless nights, walking around being p…off for days and more.
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I like you better all the time Jay!!! Great sense of humor. Trust me, you will be employing every single one of those options, multiple times, and will end up finding none of them work very well. I went home for lunch and found a bird trapped inside my recently netted Montmorency tree. I went over that net with a fine tooth comb- out of curiosity as much as frustration, and finally found a gap right where the net ties to the trunk and so help me got it isn’t more then 3 x 2 inches. But it is the only hole bigger than the net pattern, so it HAD to be where the darn thing got in. That means that stupid bird -in just 2 days since I put net up- has inspected the entire circumference of my net and eventually figured out he needed to land on the ground, walk to the trunk, somehow push himself through a hole that was almost exactly the size of his body, then work his way up to the fruit. Whoever coined the term “bird brain” clearly has never seen birds figuring out how to steal fruit! haha.
@aap I agree # 8 is the easiest and probably most simple solution, but us fruit growers just can’t stoop to store buying our fruits! haha. That’s why we go through this hell to begin with- homegrown is so much better. But yea, if I’d had a good place to buy cherries this year I might have done so as well! I say that because I most certainly have been, as you said “walking aroung P…ed off for days”! haha
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I buy 3lb containers at Sam,s for $5.95, how much easier can you get it. During cherry season I usely buy 6 of those containers, be done with cherries for the year, than go to figs, plums, paw paw, do the Yearly tour, be done around March with citrus. Can’t forget my tons of persimmons. Terrible!!, not having a cherry tree.
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haha. blasphemy!!! You can’t buy fruit at the grocery store after all we suffer through for our hobby! And they don’t sell pie cherries, only sweet ones as far as I know.
Of course I hope you know I’m only joking about not buying fruit at the store…I’m pretty sure every single one of us do that, I know I do. But it isn’t as good, and just like with the sour/pie cherries we are talking about now, stores often don’t sell some of the things we grow. And of course we have a lot more control over what goes on our homegrown fruit.
So, I hope you know I’m only giving you some good natured ribbing about the idea of just getting your fruit at the supermarket. I’d like to say I don’t do it but of course I do!!! And after this fight with the birds, if they had sour cherries I’d sure be considering them now.
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I grow a big variety of fruits, my wife use to make the best fig jams, did a lot with peaches, tried persimmon ice cream. We are now antiques, less labor, enjoy eating out. Over 50 years of fruit growing, you name it I have done it.
You can buy a lot of better stuff nowadays than years ago. I grow a big variety of mandarins in containers, in zone 7, crazy right? Knowing that my mandarins never taste as good as stuff growing in California. Never the less, I think it’s pretty close. So, a lot of fruits you can buy nowadays are pretty decent.
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@jcguarneri,
Your statement about people don’t try new things as they don’t like changes is true in general but may not be true here.
Have you not known us enough by now? A lot of us are not quite sane. We have many zone pushers, experimenters, risk takers, etc.
Believe me, some people here have tried a lot of weirder things than spraying sugar water 
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