Hi, I’m Farm to Table chef Teca Thompson, at TecaThompson.com. And today, we’re talking about how to keep blackbirds out of your corn patch. This is going to work for any-size corn patch, but I’m just going to show you on one stalk of corn today. So, there’s a few different ways that I’m going to example today. One, is to use bird netting. You can get this at your local home and garden store, or at a nursery, and you’re just going to want to cut a piece off as big as the patch, and put it around and stake it in, like so, making sure that you put enough stakes around to keep them in place. So, that’s one. Another one – and, you only want to do this after the corn has pollinated itself, which means that the silks down here have been pollinated by the tassel up here, and you can tell this by the color of the silk, which is a nice golden brown now. So, now we’re good to go. So, you want to take a paper bag and just place it over the ear of corn, like this, and they can’t really get in or eat it, so that’s a really good way to keep them out as well. And then, for the third is flashing lights – they don’t like bright flashing lights. So, if you place bright flashing lights, they’ll definitely be deterred from coming into your garden. And then, also, you can use shiny ribbon – tying a bow of tassel or shiny ribbon around the stalk of your corn can greatly deter or annoy them. So, like so. And, those are some good ways, I think, of how to keep blackbirds out of your corn patch. I’m Farm to Table chef Teca Thompson, at TecaThompson.com. Thank you for watching.
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