When I first moved in here, south east Queensland, 25 years ago, I planted a small orchard in part of the house paddock. I also started feeding the birds, up to about 50 a day demanded their handout. Mostly lorikeets, blue-headed honeyeaters, butcher birds, magpies & topknot pigeons, but quite a few smaller ones as well.

I had tropical peaches & apples, a few citrus, apricot & blue & white mulberries mostly, but also passion fruit on the fence, Brazilian cherries & dragon fruit completed the picture.

After a few years the fruit fly arrived, & I was using too much pesticide to control them. With the cost of expensive water, fertiliser, the poisons were the last straw. The crows were getting the lemons, the magpies the mandarins, various the mulberries & the lorikeets would eat the half grown apples, leaving just the core hanging on the tree. If I was going to have to use poisons, I might as well buy my fruit.

I ripped out all but a large Mulberry for shade, some passionfruit, the dragon fruit that nothing attacked, & Brazilian cherry. These fruit on the hardwood, hidden away behind the foliage, & the birds haven't found them. The kids loved the new lawn area.

Yesterday the honey eaters found a way to attack the dragon fruit, destroying a dozen almost ripe, & the white cockatoos stripped the passion fruit bare.

Enough is enough, my bird café is closed.

Hassy no SUSTAINABILITY another example of mans failure to live in harmoney with the enviroment! Get rid of all that introduced foreign rubbish joint the Greens and find earth people who can put you in touch with nature before it is to late.

The birds were neither your friends not your enemies. The trees you planted were just a resource to them. They survive by being smart enough to learn how to utilise new resources even the ones you thought were hidden away. You survive by being smart enough to outwit them. For small home orchards with just a few trees, bird netting is quite effective.

Cossomby above is right.

All your fruit, except for the mulberries are unsuitable for sub tropics. Star apple are worried by anything, Persimmons too :-)
Cheers

A small addition. If you started feeding the birds regularly when you planted the orchard, you were actually training them up to come to your property for food. So down the track when the orchard started producing fruit, well...
This is a standard procedure for dealing with pest animals, using poisons like 1080 - lay out unpoisoned carrots, oats etc. then when you've trained the pests to come, provide poisoned food. I'm not suggesting you should have poisoned the birds, just that you were using a well-known technique, and should not have been surprised at the result.

Not surprised, except for the dragon fruit. I'll obviously have to pick them a little earlier, before the birds are attracted to them by the ripe smell.

The birds aren't too bright. They were onto the blue mulberries, but it took 5 years for them to realise the white ones were eatable.

It is rather nice having them come when you walk outside, rather than flee, & the grand kids like the birds more than the fruit, so I'll probably keep the café open.

Fool on hill, the tropical apples are very successful, producing as well as southern varieties, & the tropical peaches ripen before the fruit fly appear each year so very successful here actually.

You are a victim of your foolish ment , I hope you got council approval for this venture as it may encroach on another persons idea of tranquility. Your backyard is your own, and not meant for any wild parties, to disrupt others.

//For small home orchards with just a few trees, bird netting is quite effective.//

That's what we've found to work: olives, finger limes, lemons, mandarins, grapes, passionfruit, tomatoes, onions, mulberries in both varieties although I've never understood the point of the white ones because they have no flavour; it's the apples that struggle and it's not really good country for apples anyway.

Ever had a home made olive? Better than you can buy in the stores, and the wildlife won't touch them because they're inedible before brining.

I want to look into growing my own mushrooms. Any mycologists around here?

Hassy birds have bird brains, but they beat you. As did the introduced fruit flys which you help to spread. Where does that put you. And you have the hide to call me a fool. No fool like an old fool

Dear Hasbeen,

For years my wife had lamented the very poor output from a fig tree she planted quite a while ago. She got to wondering how much of it was claimed by birds even though she hadn't caught any actually feeding on the fruit. Her sister mentioned a plastic hawk from Bunnings had worked for her so in she went to purchase one.

The salesperson said the hawk would do the job but that another item was very effective. It looks like a balloon with eyes.
http://www.bunnings.com.au/whites-60cm-x-0-2mm-birdscare-balloon-pest-control_p3041582

As it was under $5 so my wife thought why not. When she got it home i was more than a little skeptical.

The veritable harvest of figs that tree is now delivering every few days is amazing. The trick is to move them every morning which doesn't take much time else the birds do wise up.

We've got an almond tree, plum trees, lemons, peach trees,
and no problems since buying an "owl" from our local National
Geographic shop. The "Owl" is quite large and we do move it
around.

//We've got an almond tree, plum trees, lemons, peach trees//

I am green with envy. It's too warm in Newcastle for stone fruit, which is a damn shame because I really want an apricot tree. The apricots they sell in the shops have no flavour. I can remember when apricots tasted of apricot, but I reckon the only way I'll be able to get one like that these days is to grow my own.

//Her sister mentioned a plastic hawk from Bunnings//

//no problems since buying an "owl" from our local National
Geographic shop.//

Alternatively, why not get a real hawk and teach yourself the ancient skill of falconry? There are plenty of native raptors which I'm sure would be suitable for the task, and I imagine you're the sort of chap that would get a thrill from watching a larger, more powerful bird preying on smaller, weaker ones.

Tony do try to find the "tropical" varieties if peaches & apricots that are sold up here. Beaudesert Mitre 10 carries them, & along with tropical apples are very good fruiters of tasty fruit, if you can be bothered to keep the birds & fruit fly off.

Glad the bird scarers are working for some. A few of us have tried then them & scare crows but the birds just use them to perch on.

I had a similar problem out at the the Reef, in the Whitsundays, with an outer reef instillation. We had a 60Ft imitation sub coral viewing vessel, & a large pontoon with shade & lunch facilities to tie the big cat to. The gannets soon discovered this perfect overnight roosting place. They could deposit an inch of guano overnight, which took a fair while to remove with a 2" fire hose. The stink was so bad you could not take tourists to the thing before it was cleaned.

When I installed an electronic bird scarer it attracted the birds off the sub, moored a hundred yards away, & they roosted on it's box by preference. They could drop 6" on it, & it's immediate surrounds in 3 days, when bad weather kept us in port.

I ended up having to install living quarters & keep a skipper & his girl friend out there to keep the birds off. This proved cheaper than flying someone out there by Air Whitsunday sea plane each morning to clean the thing, at $350 a flight.

G'day there HASBEEN...

Try as you may, I would've thought it's pretty hard to defeat birds and insects, while at the same time, trying to cultivate an orchard in your home paddock. A simple instance of either the birds or the orchard, but not both.

Being a solid devotee and stalwart of John GOULD all those years ago, wouldn't it be better and more achievable to continue feeding them, as my wife and I continue to do so. By allowing them to return once more to your home paddock, for a decent feed. Thereby permitting you and yours, to re-establish your former convival relationship with your friendly fruiterer once again.

Hi STEELEREDUX, I had a colleague who on retirement, took his family down to Melbourne somewhere in South Vermont, wherever that is? Your good Wife's mastery in nurturing a good fig tree is laudable indeed. Figs apparently are loaded with all manner of excellent nutritional 'wherewithal' to keep us healthy. And the trees themselves grow to a goodly height and age as well I believe?

There again I'm most certainly not sciolistic in matters of horticulture neither. Nor do I possess 'green-fingers'.

Toni Lavis,

You can grow a Peachcot if you have a position with long daily sun. Very tasty apricot flavour.

Self pollinating, resistant to some common problems and can be pruned for a small space. Do not over-care. Just a good mulch annually in Spring and some complete fertiliser.

You could try it in a large tub.

I don't miss the cold but I sure miss the 'in the present' mindfulness encouraged by the passing of the seasons and the required chores (rituals almost) of tending fruit and garden flowers. It was a never ending job.

Warmer zones are different. Still, I have my interest in growing flowering plants for butterflies and English and Native bees. That also encourages the best bird behaviours in a garden.

ATM there is a Currawong rolling over and over, playing its daily game with pieces of curled seed husk.

My mother went outside one morning to find a flying fox trapped in the net she has used to protect her fruit.

She called the wildlife rescue people and when this lady arrived she threatened my mum with an $80,000 fine for trapping a protected species. Of cause I told mum to call me next time, but this just goes to show how mad we have become as a society, wasting so much time on the likes of these pests, while ignoring the likes of homeless kids.

So my point is, be careful how you go about protecting your fruit trees.

Yep Butch, and how many homeless kids are trapped in the net? All are important, flying foxes and homeless kids. Homeless kids are trapped in another kind of net, unfortunatly much harder to escape from.

So Paul you agree that it should be illegal to place a net over ones fruit do you. I think its a joke, and in fact, it has led to many farmers going broke all for the sake of saving some vermin.