I live in an apartment in the city on the top floor of a 5 story building. I also really enjoy growing veggies in the summer. I’m not sure if I’m going to do it this year.
For one thing I’ve found out it is illegal to put potted plants on the fire escape. I believe it’s for safety reasons. However, everyone else in my building has plants on their fire escapes. Plus, everyone else in the whole wide world does it. And yes, I’m rationalizing but, damnit, I love my fire escape garden!
So the real reason I am reluctant to start my fire escape garden this year is. . . birds and squirrels. The birds love my cherry tomatoes. The sparrows just peck at the full grown tomatoes, but the crows (those nasty, creepy, deep-voiced creatures with alien intelligence) like to nip the buds of the tomato plants leaving behind a nice plant with plenty of leaves and stems and no tomatoes.
The squirrels think the plants are their own private dirt bath, destroying the plants while they play. I really hate squirrels. They’re just rats with bushy tails.
I was so disgusted, angry and fustrated last year that I decided not to do it again this year. Only now the sun is shining, the trees are budding and my kids are asking when am I going to plant the tomatoes. And I really want to.
Pick up some dried blood at the garden center or hardware store. A small handful on the soil surface of each of your containers will gross out the squirrels and they won’t want to dig in them (as well as adding nitrogen and other nutrients).
Birds are a little tougher to frighten away. How about getting one of them big ol’ rubber owls?
Biggirl I read someplace that if you place a rubber snake near the plants, in plain view, birds will leave your stuff alone. May want to give it a try. If it works, I will take a juicy tomato in thanks.
Place 4-5 stakes in the pots. They should be four footers.
Adorn with netting (designed for fruit trees) over all. Secure the netting to the pots, so the birds can’t pull it off.
Using blood meal may work, or you can try mothballs for the squirrels.
But that kind of kills the aesthetic value, doesn’t it?
My advice? Plant the mini-garden. If you can’t enjoy the fruits of your labor, enjoy the wild life you can watch. Granted, city squirrels are a lot like rats, but deep down, they’re still fun as hell to watch.
We used to get sick of the squirrels robbing the bird feeder until we realized that they had much more personality than any of the chickadees, cardinals, bluejays, etc.
It’s worth the work. Plant the tomatos. Hit a hardware store and get some Hardware Cloth. It’s kinda like chicken wire but has holes about 1/2" square, small enough that birds and squirrels can’t get through. Wear gloves. Use tinsnips or wire cutters and make a little “box” with the hardware cloth. Bend the edges etc. in so there aren’t sharp corners. Now, you just have to lift up your wire-mesh “box” to harvest- you can water, fertilize, etc. all through the mesh. To hell with aesthetics, tomatos are for eatin’ dammit!!!
And if you sit really, really quietly right next to the potted plants, you can eventually catch the squirrels, tie their bushy fleabitten tails around their necks, and whip them at passing motorists. Did you know a squirrel can scream?
b.
P.S. wear gloves. With the wire AND the squirrels.
They can have personality elsewhere. Last summer one of those nasty little buggers decided that my bed (which is about two feet away from the fire escape window) was a wonderful place to frolic. My what a cute little rodent you are as you gallivant across my sheets!
I swear, if I’da had a gun. . . I still would ran shrieking from the room. Except I probably would have shot a toe off or something.
I think I’ll try the blood and the snakes and the owl. I really don’t want to block the fire escape any more than I have to.
Biggirl, what if you spread a little bit of chicken wire or some other loose netting around the landing near your apartment? Would that be against code? Just enough to cover the plant, but enough to push away in case of a fire?
