How to Keep Crows Out of the Garden

Series Summary

Landscaping the front or back yard doesn't have to be a professional job. Home gardens provide a tranquil area for reflection and relaxation. Tending to and enjoying a garden can lower blood pressure, ease anxiety and provide diversion in which to ponder various thoughts that have been lingering in the subconscious. Even with limited yard space, planting a small corner garden is a simple task that can be completed in just an afternoon. In this free video series on gardening, a sustainable gardener discusses maintaining a garden. Find out how to repel harmful insects naturally using any strong-smelling herbs, dried spices and dry environments. Get tips on keeping away raccoons, squirrels and mice from a garden using humane tactics, and even find out how to keep flies away from an outdoor barbecue. Maintain a garden's health by keeping pests at a distance.

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen, and in this segment we're going to talk about how to keep crows out of the garden. Now, we have a lot of crows on our property, and they're very menacing. I can't help but look at quite a few in a tree and not think about The Birds movie because they're just so creepy. But crows are animals just like any other animals, and I believe all animals have a purpose on this earth and we shouldn't harm them in any way, but we can set boundaries for em'. And so, with crows you got to remember they're very intelligent. Crows actually can mimic different sounds, different birds. They've even found that crows can live kind of like parrots a little bit, and they'll mimic what people say, so they're very smart, so they'll remember things. So, whatever you try to do to rid your garden of crows it never works forever, cause' it seems like they will find a reason to come back. But there's a few tricks that I've learned over the years that help a bit. First off, if you've got a bunch of crows in your front yard or in your yard, and they're digging things up or causing havoc taking your hose and sprayin' em' and chasin' em away; it doesn't really help in the long term, but a lot of times if you do it consistently they will remember that your house is not a fun house to hang out at and they might avoid it. Another trick that people have found that works really well, but I've got so much property I don't think it would work, cause' there's just too much area to cover, but just hanging CD discs around your yard; just the reflection from the CD will scare the birds cause' they don't know what it is, and a lot of times birds and animals; if they look at a reflection of themselves and it's a little bit distorted it scares them and they will leave the area. And also, when they're flying around through the trees if they're hanging it'll distort their vision a bit, and especially on a sunny day the prisms and the colors will make it a no-fly zone and they might actually avoid that tree. In the end, I've found that the crows are going to be here whether I really mess with them or not, and then I just try to live with them naturally. And if you have a big area that you want them to stay away from, if you've got a flower bed where they're digging things up, if you've got corn that they're getting into some say scarecrows work, some say that jack-o-lanterns work, but in the end... We have neighbors too. They've just built a big fence over the top of the corn, and they've protected the whole entire crop from the birds getting near it."