The Autumn Scent That'll Send Birds Flying Away From Your Vegetable Garden

While attracting birds to your garden can improve your estate's appeal and help you get rid of pesky weeds without much work, it might not be a good idea if you're growing vegetables in your backyard. For starters, hungry birds will swoop down and help themselves to the succulent produce, enjoying the fruits of your labor. Moreover, they'll consume pollinators, dig the soil to feast on worms hiding inside, and top off their menacing activities by defecating on available surfaces, undoing all your hard work in a matter of days. But don't worry. Fortunately, you can use an autumn scent — cinnamon— to send birds flying away from your vegetable garden.

Although cinnamon is an unexpected ingredient to keep birds out of your garden, its spicy and pungent smell — likely from the presence of coumarin — will irritate their sensitive noses and prevent thieving fowls from eating your organic produce. It's a humane way of repelling feathered creatures. Thankfully, this hack won't cost you a lot of time, money, or effort and will make your yard smell like autumn and baked goods.

The simplest way to use cinnamon to repel birds is to strategically place sticks in your vegetable garden and let its aroma do the heavy lifting. For a more potent blend, you can add a few sticks in water, bring them to a boil, and wait for the liquid to cool down before spraying it in and around the garden. However, if you don't have any sticks handy, use cinnamon powder instead. Simply combine 2 teaspoons of the powder with about 4 cups of water and shake it all up in a spray bottle. Then, spritz the solution around your yard's perimeter and plants to let birds know they aren't welcome and keep them away.

Alternatively, if you've got cinnamon oil in your pantry, mix the oil with water in a 1:3 ratio and spray this solution near the growing vegetables. However, this ratio is a starting point, and it might take some experimentation to get the ideal blend. While all of these solutions will help you keep thieving birds out of your vegetable garden, you'll have to reapply the solution or powder every few days, especially after it rains, to keep your yard bird-free.