Originally Posted by andrewmoquin

Last year birds pecked at and destroyed nearly all my tomatoes on the 12 vines I had planted. I've tried a bird bath and putting out seed for the little devils, but they reward my effort by demolishing my tomatoes anyway. I'd even wrap each tomato in pantyhose, but I'm a guy and sending out a general call for used pantyhose might label me as the weirdest kind of sexual deviant. Does Cayenne Papper on the fruit deter them at all? If it does, I'm wondering how to get the hot stuff to stick on the fruit. Does the following idea sound nutty: I'd add ground cayenne to boiling water and boil for a few minutes to get most of the hot oil from the pepper into the water, let cool, strain through cheesecloth to keep the pepper particles from clogging up my sprayer, add a little molasses for a wetting agent, and just keep spraying the fruits when they begin to ripen.