Last year birds or squirels waited for my figs to be almost ripe and ate them. Adding insult to injury they did this right after doing same to my new peach tree - waiting for precise time when fruit was perfectly ripe. I assume these were squirels or birds because there are no larger type animals around my house. Do you have advice to keep animals away from ripening fruiting? I bought some bird netting but found it very difficult to use unless therebis some trick to applying the netting. Thanks

Barry

I noticed my cat was chasing the squirrles up the tree today so maybe that will help.

 The netting is an exercise in futility unless you can build some sort of framework to attach it to,in which case poultry wire is better. Along with that,you need to invest in traps to thwart off attacks from the ground. Then putting out poison can be effective. Finally, a good shotgun(I recommend a 12 gauge) will send a clear message that you don't play around with fruit filchers. I'll bet this is not what you wanted to hear,but this is what you'll have to do if you expect to taste any of those wonderful fruits.

do you want permanent dead removal. if so pm me.   Otherwise teach your pup to sic squirrels.    The only other thing that keeps them away are hawks.   I have a pair of Kestrels nesting in large pine tree just outside of my fence.   Lots of screeching heard lately.  Yeah.   If you are lucky to have a feral cat, they like to chase squirrels.   Some times squirrels get a little complacent and don't quiet go far enough up tree.  Oops.   "Marshie"  (short for marshmallow cause she is soft and fat) scores and brings it to the back door very proud of her accomplishment.  I thank her profusely and deposit in trashbag.  Joyce

Hi bgli,
You need to thin the herd of pests ...
You need to keep your backyard clean with no food for them. Do you have a bird feeder for the winter ? ... Step one : Trash it .
If you have several fruit trees, keep them clean, with no fruit left over, no fruits out of reach, and no fruits that you won't harvest. I often hear people saying : "my cherry tree is too big but that feeds the birds ..."
Pruning helps a lot in keeping the trees clean from overripe fruits.
You can try some plastic bags or cds hung in the trees or "funny" windmills, some they make random noise and that helps in scaring the pests .
Then you'll have stubborn pests ... For those ones, there is only one solution : getting rid of them or they'll teach the others that your fruits are safe to eat ...

As for the netting, a cage around the tree is better . If you apply the net directly on the tree, the efficiency won't be worth it, especially since better ripe fruits ... are at the tips of the branches .
There is a topic here on the forum about at least one caged fig tree. You could use that kind of solution .

Another solution is to use small "organza bags" and bag each fruit. Last year, I split a shirt into pieces and would put them around the fruits 1 or 2 days before full ripeness .
It was "most of the times" efficient but was time consuming ...
But for a backyard production so that is done for fun, it works .

I just got sick because my only 2 "Pastiliere" got ripe at the same time and I only detected one going into ripeness ... I got the one, and the birds got the second ( and so I knew it had started to ripen :( )...

In my place I could sit there battling pests forever.  I get rid of one and there is a line up to replace them. 

For high priority fruits (grapes) I use netting and that works 95% for birds.   There is always a few that get inside the nets.

For figs the pests don't seem to be a problem until October when the other fruits are gone then I need to be more vigilant.

This blog talks about using "organza bags" to protect fruit and shows a fig tree with bags on it and some large yellow figs. It seems like an easier way to protect your figs if you just have a few fruit you're protecting and want to live in harmony with your critters.

http://akitchengardeninkiheimaui.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-great-product-for-gardening-organza.html

Does anyone have a link to a favorite brand of bags that they use for figs?

Mara,

Those bags do not help. Yes, initially they seem to protect the figs but the critters will figure out quickly.
The squirrels snap the figs with the branch sometimes and take the bag apart on the ground. The birds just peck through.
You can find them on eBay of any color and size, go for the green if you want to try them, size about 4x6 or so (but that depends on the variety).

I've had good results with bird netting.  True, it's not foolproof, but it has protected many of my figs (and only a few times was thwarted).  I do live in suburbia, so probably not as many potential pests around (but still quite a few).  I don't use any framing... I just wrap it over and around the tree, and then tuck in all the edges (either under the pot or else using rocks to weight it down).  It's not 100% effective, but way way better than no protection.  I usually only cover the dark figs, as most of the time the green figs aren't disturbed here.

Mike

Large speakers and loud music.