Cayenne pepper powder reinforced with:

This post was edited by milehighgirl on Thu, Jun 19, 14 at 2:14

If not netted for birds I would look there first. then do as Milehighgirl has suggested

Bordeaux mixture was used to deter passerby's from eating grapes. Turned out to be a great fungicide. Maybe you could use it for it's first intended use, which worked btw.

Is there room to place an infrared/motion activated sprinkler?

Years ago while in college I had some dwarf apple trees on
a corner lot. The grade school kids in the neighborhood congregated there for the bus stop. Soon my apples were gone although not fully ripe.

The following autumn, my friend dusted the trees with talcum powder. It looked horrible and the kids did not pick the fruit. Cheap and effective. Successful crop.

Thanks very much for the ideas.I may put something on them.I like your professional looking sign milehighgirl.There's a hardware store nearby that may have something like that.Your infrared/motion activated sprinkler gave me a thought charina.I may set up a motion activated camera.I've seen some fairly inexpensive ones around. Brady

I like the idea of talcum powder, If you put up a sign as well you'd probably get the job done. I was also going to suggest Surround but I have no experience with it.

Don't do a camera for a fruit bush-- that seems like a bit much, and definitely it's not a friendly neighborhood thing to do IMO :). If I had a camera in that scenario, I'd be sitting in my office, watching and hyperventilating all evening at the first sight of a neighborhood kid :). Might be the best thing some of those kids have eaten all year if it is the kids, and I'm betting it might just be birds anyway. Maybe the best bet would be just to go out and make friends with the kids, go out and pull some weeds while they're playing and tell them about your problem with the birds and how frustrating it is after all your hard work, as if to ask them to scare them away if they see them-- friendliness goes a long way with people of all ages. And it will tell them all that picking them is morally wrong. Some kids might still eat them, but most would know it was wrong, and if you reinforce by waving every time you see them, they will know you are watching. Guilt trip them. Be the nice, crazy, neighborhood gardener, not the neighborhood a#$hole-- don't make yourself a target for adolescent hormones. Or go with the anonymous/generic sign and a cayenne pepper spray.

You can't use the sprinkler if it's a public path. Can't really use Bordeaux or Surround on aggregate fruits due to the difficulty of cleaning all of the residue.

I like the idea of signage, cayenne, and talc.

We've used a fake camera before. I don't know if the signs suggested would work.

The worst bouts of human induced damage was kids picking the apples to throw at each other. Being small and hard was probably seen as desirable for that.

The best result so far was obtained by my mother talking to the kids about the fruit and telling them to come ask to try them when they are ripe.

Of course, she had to be there to catch them in the act.

I hung a sign similar to last year and sprinkled baby powder on the plant.It does look kind of scary with it on there.
Right now,I don't suspect the children.I have some ladders that are stored a few feet away,in back of the carport,that are not in plain sight,but can be seen somewhat,if walking along the path to the office park.I thought it was a friendly neighborhood,until someone recently walked off with a Little Giant type ladder.This is another reason why I'm considering some type of camera.Also,I want to verify if a raccoon is digging through the wood chips in the backyard area. Brady

I would definitely not do anything that was unfriendly. You live there. Pretty much if it is in reach it is up for grabs. The pesticide sign in dual languages makes the most sense. Some bird netting on some of it may preserve some for you.

I'd go with the talcum and signage. Kind of a pain though, you'll have to reapply after each good rain, plus you have to deal with any that gets on the berries. Maybe the best option is to relocate the berry patch to a part of your lawn that isn't beside a public walkway, and use the trellis by the carport to grow something like ivy or clematis that looks nice but people will leave alone.