Bird Netting for Tomatoes — 5 Options, One Mesh Size

Before buying netting, work out what is actually happening — because the damage pattern tells you whether netting is even the right tool, and because birds usually want something other than your tomato.

They want the water in it.

Read the damage before you buy anything

That last row catches people out. Concentric or radial cracking in a tomato skin after heavy rain following a dry spell is a water-uptake problem, not an animal, and netting will not help.

The hornworm row is worth noting too: the birds pecking your tomatoes are also eating the caterpillars on them, which is part of why excluding them wholesale is not always a clear win.

Why water usually is the answer

A ripe tomato is roughly 95% water, soft-skinned and sitting at eye level in full sun. In a dry August, with puddles gone and natural water scarce, it is the most accessible water source in the garden.

The signature is a few shallow pecks in the reddest fruit, which is then left on the plant. A bird that wanted the tomato would do considerably more damage.

So the first thing to try is a shallow bird bath, kept filled, near the beds. Two weeks will tell you. It costs a fraction of netting a bed, and if it works you keep the birds — which, given they are eating hornworms and fruitworms, is the better outcome.

Picking at first blush and ripening indoors on a windowsill is the other free fix. A tomato picked at the first colour change ripens perfectly off the plant.

Mesh size does two jobs

This is the part worth getting right, because one of the two jobs is a welfare question.

Exclusion. Three-quarters of an inch or finer keeps garden birds out. Larger mesh lets smaller birds through and is routinely sold for fruit protection anyway.

Not trapping anything. A bird that pushes its head through a one-inch mesh cannot reverse out — feathers catch going backwards — and it struggles until exhausted. The same happens to garter snakes, lizards and hedgehogs, which get caught mid-body and cannot go either way. Conservation organisations list loose large-mesh garden netting as a notable hazard for exactly this reason, and an animal found too late does not recover.

Fine mesh pulled taut gives an animal nothing to push into. That is the whole safety measure, and it is free once you have chosen the right roll.

Framing is the technique

Netting draped over tomato plants fails in three ways at once. Birds stand on it and peck through at fruit directly below. The netting presses on ripening tomatoes and marks them. And loose fabric in contact with foliage is what catches feet and feathers.

Held clear on hoops, all three go away:

• Hoops pushed into the soil, tall enough to clear the plants at full height
• Netting over the top, clipped to the hoops, pulled taut
• Edges weighted or pegged to the ground so there is no gap at the bottom
• One end left openable, so picking does not mean dismantling

Six inches of clearance is enough. More is better where you can.

Material, and false economy

The cheapest netting is extruded polyethylene — the stiff diamond-pattern stuff sold in wide rolls. It works for a season, then UV makes it brittle, and it tears and ladders. The fragments end up distributed through the garden, which is both a nuisance and a plastic-pollution problem.

Knitted or woven UV-stabilised netting costs more per square foot and lasts several seasons, holds its shape at the fixings, and tangles less because the mesh does not deform. Over three years it is the cheaper option.

If it turns out to be squirrels

The tell is scale: whole fruit gone, big bites, green tomatoes taken and abandoned. Squirrels and chipmunks chew through plastic netting without difficulty — it is an obstacle of a few seconds.

Half-inch galvanised hardware cloth, built into a cage or cylinder, is the answer. It is dearer and more work, it cuts a little more light, and it is the only thing that holds. It also excludes birds, so it covers both problems at once if you have both.