Homemade Bird Seed Ornaments

Snow Days are for the Birds

A stormy winter’s day results in a feeding frenzy of birds. As such, snow days are some of the best days for drinking coffee and bird watching out my back window. Yesterday, as the snow was falling, I got to enjoy an incredible array of backyard birds. Five blue jays came and went, in a fanfare of brilliant blue, filling their gullets with Zick Dough, black oil sunflower seeds, and peanuts. My regular flock of juncos, in three varieties—oregon, slate-colored, and pink-sided—and the white-crowned sparrow that hangs out with them, were also here for the homemade Zick Dough and bird seed cakes. At least a dozen doves stopped in and cleaned up fallen millet and milo under the feeders. And then there were my finches—we had 19 beautifully-bronzed American Goldfinches show up, along with three redheaded male house finches. These are my seed-eaters, through and through, along with my chatty chickadees, and they especially love my homemade bird seed cakes and pine cone bird seed feeders. Oh, and I can’t forget my Northern Flickers. We had a mated pair of the red-shafted variety here, on and off, all day. They love suet, most of all, especially Zick Dough. As you can see, there is something for everyone here—no songbird forgotten. I have already shared recipes with you for Zick Dough and Pine Cone Bird Seed Feeders, so today, I want to share my recipe for Bird Seed Cakes, also known as Bird Seed Ornaments.

Bird Seed Cakes

Bird Seed Cakes are convenient and easy-to-make bird seed treats that are sure to be loved by your backyard birds. They utilize gelatin as a binder to hold bird seed together in individual cakes. Tie a string to them and it makes them easy to hang—like little ornaments. They are also great gifts for teachers, neighbors, grandparents—really, anyone who loves nature! They are a great way to feed birds without needing a special bird feeder—just hang them around your house and the birds will come. This last christmas, I hung more than a dozen from a small tree in my father-in-law’s yard, and he was surprised with all the birds they attracted. Within just a couple days, his yard became the hot spot for mountain chickadees, black-capped chickadees, and red-breasted nuthatches. Plus, because I tied cute christmas ribbons to each one, they fit in with the christmas decor, and looked just like ornaments hanging from the tree.

These Bird Seed Cakes couldn’t be easier to make, but they do require some patience, as they will need to set up and harden before you can offer them to your backyard birds. (If you want something that will be immediately ready for bird consumption, try making these Pine Cone Bird Seed Feeders instead!) To make these bird seed ornaments, you will simply mix up a gelatin binding base, combine it with some seed, press it into molds, and wait until they harden up. Tie a string to each feeder and hang them from your trees, and before you know it, the neighborhood birds will be flocking to your yard.

The gelatin binding base in this recipe always stays the same, but the resulting ornaments are usually slightly different because variety is the spice of life, and what I put in these depends on what bird seed I have available. Sometimes when I make them, I will substitute in dried fruit or chopped peanuts for some of the seed. Other times, I’ll make them with a no-mess seed blend containing sunflower kernels, chopped peanuts, cracked corn, and proso millet—pure, ready-to-eat birdy goodness! Most of the time, however, I’ll just whip these up with my regular bird seed mix that I make at home in large totes. My mix varies a little but the general formula come refill time is as follows:

• (ONE) 50 pound bag of black oil sunflower seeds

• (ONE) 25 pound bag of wild bird seed mix—normally this has a combinations of black oil sunflower seeds, corn, millet, milo*, and safflower seed

• (TWO or THREE) 5-10 pound bags of whatever else looks good at the store—usually I’ll find no-mess mixes with lots of peanuts and sunflower kernels or a mix geared toward woodpeckers or chickadees that has little pieces of dried fruit with peanuts, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, almonds, pecans, striped sunflower seeds, etc.

  • *I’m okay with mixes containing milo and millet because the doves here readily eat it!

Once you combine your seed with your gelatin binder, you will press the mixture into molds that have been greased with cooking spray. You can use a number of different molds for this recipe. I prefer making individual cakes using cupcake tins or slightly larger muffin tins. I also have some mini-bundt tins that work perfectly for this recipe. If you have large metal cookie cutters, those will give you cute shapes. If you would rather make one large bird seed wreath, as opposed to lots of little ornaments, you can use a large bundt pan—just be sure to give it a few days to dry out fully. And, if you have none of the aforementioned containers, just use what you have—even plastic cups or bowls will work.

In order to hang these easily, you will have to have a means of tying a ribbon or string to each cake. I find that putting a hole right into the center of each cake works best, rather than trying to wrap a string around them afterwards, or place a string in them as you are filling the molds. The easiest way to create a hole is to use a drill bit large enough to accommodate your string AFTER the ornaments have set up and dried completely. Until I discovered how well the drill worked, though, I would always just use my finger, or better yet, a pencil-thin wooden dowel. To do this, simply pack your molds full, then before they set, sink your finger or dowel straight down into the center of each cake. Before removing your finger or dowel, put pressure with your other hand around it, so when you remove your finger or the dowel, seed mixture doesn’t get dislodged. Then set your cakes off the side to dry up for a day or two.

When your cakes have completely dried, tie a string to each one. I get a length of ribbon or twine that is about 10-12 inches long, place one end through the hole of the cake and then do a simple overhand knot where the two ends meet. When I hang them, I try to place them near a branch or a spot that birds can perch on while eating. Most seed-eating birds aren’t capable of hovering to eat, so if you hang these from your eaves or a spot where there is nothing to perch on, they may go uneaten. I store “extras” in my freezer to maintain their freshness.

Lots of my backyard birds enjoy these bird seed cakes, including Black-Capped Chickadees, Mountain Chickadees, Goldfinches, Juncos, Red-Breasted Nuthatches, White-Breasted Nuthatches, and Downy Woodpeckers. I’ve attached a PRINTABLE VERSION of this recipe for your convenience. If you try it, please come back and tell me which of your backyard birds have stopped by to try them.

How to Make Bird Seed Cakes

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup water

• 2 -.25 oz. envelopes Knox unflavored gelatin

• ⅓  cup light corn syrup

• 1 cup all-purpose flour

• 8-10  cups bird seed*

• Nonstick cooking spray

PREPARATION

1. Prepare Gelatin Binder: In a large pot over medium heat, dissolve packets of plain gelatin mix in water.  Add the corn syrup. Once the mix is completely dissolved, turn off the heat and whisk in flour.  Your mixture should be smooth and somewhat runny--like Elmer’s glue.

2. Add the Seed: Add half the bird seed to the gelatin binder mixture.  Stir to coat evenly. Add remaining bird seed, one cup at a time. Seed should be thoroughly coated, but not so wet that it is gloppy and hard to work with.  

3. Transfer to molds: Scoop seed into  greased muffin/cupcake/bundt pans and use the back of a metal spoon to really pack it in tightly.  You could also use greased metal cookie cutters for fun shapes. You can either poke holes in each feeder with your finger or a wooden dowel before they set up, or use a large drill bit and drill out a hole after they dry for a couple days.  I prefer to drill a hole, but have done both successfully.

4. To Serve: Once cakes are fully dried, tie a string or ribbon to each bird seed cake, and hang from the trees in your yard.

5. Store in your Freezer until ready to serve.

How to Help Birds Survive this Winter

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Some mornings, I curl up in a blanket around my cup of coffee, and complain about how 67 degrees in the climate-controlled house feels so cooold...Until I look outside and see my flock of backyard birds enduring a blowing cold, snowy, 10 degree morning. Birds are tough—way tougher than me! Their adaptability never ceases to amaze me. But enduring cold weather is really apart of bird physiology; they were made to weather temperature extremes.

Birds keep warm in the winter through a number of physical adaptations and practices. For starters, they wear a coat of downy feathers. When they “puff” out their fine downy feathers, they are insulating themselves with air. They also eat—a lot! During the day, they have to build up their fat reserves so they can survive the long night ahead. Due to the unpredictable availability of food, many birds have caching practices that start in the fall, before it gets really cold. When they come across a surplus, they will hide away food for later on, in case they need it. Some birds aren’t as far-sighted, and only anticipate getting through the night. For these birds, like redpolls and crossbills, they will store food right in their crop, or throat pouch, and the food will keep their proverbial heater burning into the night. At night, when birds are most vulnerable, they employ a number of different tactics to keep warm. Some birds, like bluebirds, nuthatches, and chickadees, will huddle into nestboxes or tree cavities. Other birds like kinglets and finches will nestle together into communal roosts on evergreen boughs. And when huddling isn’t enough to keep warm at night, birds must resort to nocturnal hypothermia or even torpor. Both of these practices include turning the body’s basal temperature way down, and reducing metabolism drastically. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the many adaptations birds have to help them survive winter—it really is a topic of great fascination for me.

With that said, however, birds do have many factors working against them in winter. Studies have show that the birds that have the most difficult time surviving winter are birds on the margins of a range. These are the birds that can truly benefit form a little human intervention in winter time to make life a little bit easier. Here are some of the steps you can take to help your backyard birds survive the cold this winter:

Ways you can help your birds this winter

• Offer Supplemental Wild Bird Food

  The most obvious thing you can do to help birds survive winter weather is to offer them FOOD. In order to keep up their basal temperature (which is around 105 degrees F), birds must consume lots of calories and use less calories. In winter, especially when there is lots of snow cover, natural food sources like seed heads and seeds on the ground, become harder for birds to access. By offering food, you can make it easier for birds to eat enough calories to weather an excessively cold day. Here are some of the different foods you can offer your backyard birds:

  • Bird Seed

    • Offered in any kind of bird feeder, bird seed is a great way to make your backyard birds’ lives easier in winter. One of the least expensive and widely appreciated winter bird seeds to offer your birds is Black Oil Sunflower Seed. The big box stores sell 40-50 lb bags for less than $20. I find that many of the birds who cache, or hide away food for later, appreciate the black oil sunflower seeds because the protective shells help them store well until later.

  • Suet

    • Foods rich in fat, like suet and peanut butter, are also good options in winter. You can buy inexpensive suet-based blocks or cylinders for just a few dollars a piece, and offer them to your birds in a suet cage feeder. These blocks offer birds fat, which is very important to their winter survival, and they don’t need to be refilled as often as a seed feeder. Plus, some birds that will not visit a traditional seed feeder will visit a suet feeder. You can also offer the birds homemade foods that are high in fat and excellent for winter feeding. Here are links to two recipes I offer my birds come colder weather—Zick Dough and Pine Cone Bird Seed Feeders.

  • Fruit

    • One of the best, easiest foods you can offer your backyard birds is fruit, grown on trees and shrubs around your landscape. All you need to do is plant them, and the birds will come. We have grown a number of shrubs and trees that attract various birds. A couple that I really like are Junipers (red cedars) and Crabapples. Some people don’t like junipers, but they are perfect for birds. They offer evergreen winter color & cover for the birds, and the berries are popular amongst Cedar Waxwings, American Robins, Stellar’s Jays, and Townsend Solitaires. Crabapples provide literally four seasons of interest in the landscape, and many varieties that cling to their fruit into the fall and winter, like Profusion and Prairifire, are a hit amongst the same birds who love juniper berries, as well as chickadees, flickers, and bluebirds. Other great varieties to plant for birds include Serviceberries, Dogwoods, Viburnums, Chokecherries, Elderberries, Currants, and Bayberries.

• Keep Bird Feeders Full

  • Birds have long nights to get through in winter, with it sometimes being dark for 12 hour stretches. One thing you can do to help them when they need it the most, is to ensure your feeders are full, especially in the morning, when they first wake up, and in the evening, before they tuck in for another long, cold night. Also, by keeping feeders full, you can keep your birds around. I find that, if the feeders are often left empty, then birds will go looking for a more dependable food source. This is one of the most common bird-feeding complaints I come across. Neighbors or co-workers will tell me that birds are never at their feeders. They will have some premium Wild Birds Unlimited seed mix they are offering, in a feeder way nicer than what I’ve got, and then it’ll come out that they let their feeder run out and don’t refill it for weeks at a time. If you don’t keep your feeders full, the birds will move on, especially in winter, when finding dependable food sources is so important for their survival.

• Keep Bird Feeders Clean

  • Equally as important as keeping feeders well-stocked, is keeping them clean. I take my feeders down at least monthly, and hand wash them with hot water and Dawn dish soap. I allow them to dry completely before refilling them. If I see any sick birds, which normally doesn’t happen in the winter, I will take this a step further and soak the feeders in a dilute 1:10 bleach water solution, before rinsing and allowing them to dry completely. In addition to having clean feeders, you need to be offering clean food. Food should be stored in a cool, dry location, safe from bugs and rodents. If food gets wet, is growing mold or mildew, or has an unpleasant smell, it should be thrown away and replaced with fresh food. Also, if you have had food in your feeder for a few weeks and the birds are no longer showing interest in it, throw it out, clean the feeder, and offer them some fresh food. Often times, birds will not eat spoiled food and, if they aren’t around, that is a good indicator that the food has gone bad.

• Offer Clean Water

  • Birds need water to survive in winter, just as much as they need food. They use water for both drinking and bathing. Clean, well-oiled & preened feathers can hold more air to keep the birds more insulated and warm in winter. And while they will not hop all the way in a bird bath on a freezing day, they will if the weather gets warm and sunny one afternoon. It is especially helpful to offer birds water in winter, because many natural water sources such as ponds and reservoirs freeze over in winter. Just as natural water sources ice up in winter, so do bird baths. To keep your bird bath free from ice you can put a De-Icer in it or get a Heated Bird Bath to begin with. I don’t use either of those, though—I simply have a Heated Dog Bowl on by back deck that I keep full of fresh, clean water. The bowl is deep, so I placed a big rock in it that is somewhat flat on top. Many small birds will not bathe in water that is more than and inch or so deep. I put the rock in the bowl to better accommodate my little songbirds. I picked up the heated dog bowl for less than $25 at the local feed store and it has done a good job of keeping the water free from ice. I have Blue Jays, Juncos, Doves, and Squirrels visit it regularly for drinks all winter long. Plus, with it being on my back deck, as opposed to out in the landscape somewhere, it is easy for me to keep clean and keep full of water.

• Provide Winter Cover

  • Plant Trees, Shrubs, and Evergreens

  • Postpone Winter Cleanup

  • Provide a Brush Pile

    • Any of the above provides structure and shelter during inclement weather. By having a mix of evergreens, trees, shrubs, un-pruned perennial grasses, brush piles, and so forth, you have a mixture of habitats for your birds to use to seek shelter from wind, hunker down on cold nights, and hide from predators.

• Leave up those Nest Boxes & Bird Houses

  • Like I mentioned earlier, some birds keep warm by taking shelter in tree cavities and nest boxes. I can’t remember where I heard it now, but bluebirds, in particular, have been known to pile into nestboxes on cold nights.

  • Put warm, comfy bedding material in your bird boxes

    • You can also take this a step further by placing a comfortable bedding material into your nest boxes and birdhouses in winter. If you line them with some wood shavings or straw, it further insulates them from the cold and provides the birds with a little bedding material to really nestle down into.

• Keep Cats Indoors

  • This is really self-explanatory. Cats a major bird killers. If you keep your cats inside, then there is no chance for them to get your backyard birds.
    
    

And so, there you have it—actionable tips you can follow to help make this winter just a little less challenging on your backyard birds. Whether you follow just a few of these tips, or all of them, I appreciate you for doing your part to help our feathered friends this winter. Please comment below and let me know if there are any other measures you take to help your backyard birds winter just a little bit more easily.

Cherry Tomato Selections for the 2020 Garden

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The Year of Cherry Tomatoes

If you want to grow something that is sure to boost your gardening confidence, then look no further than cherry tomatoes! They are always exuberant performers in the garden and a couple cherry tomato plants can produce an abundance of juicy, sweet orbs all summer. If you have grown them, then I am sure you heartily agree. Normally I plant only a few cherry tomato plants, but I have deemed this year “The Year of Cherry Tomatoes.” While we had a sudden unexpected snow storm yesterday, I sat inside and dreamed of a truly rainbow bowlful of cherry & grape tomatoes. So this year, I’m going for it! I am throwing restraint out the window and planting several cherry tomato varieties. I’m sure I’ll regret it when co-workers, friends, and neighbors start declaring—”No, I don’t need anymore cherry tomatoes—I still have the gallon bag you brought me yesterday.” But alas, you only live once!

Today, I wanted to share my Cherry Tomato Selection for this Year with you. I have grown some of these varieties before, and some are brand new to me. All are indeterminate varieties, meaning they will continue flowering and fruiting until a killing frost. Moreso than having a colorful bowlful of cherry tomatoes, I am growing big on the cherry tomatoes this year, and scaling back on the slicers because Hunter & I are in a new house, and we are largely starting from scratch with all of the landscaping. In other words, we have a lot of work planned for this year, including establishing a new vegetable plot. You can read more about it here: 2020 New Year, New Garden. Cherry tomatoes are a high impact crop to grow—they provide tons of fruit, ripen quickly, and are low-maintenance. This is just what we need on a year when we have so many other planting projects planned. So, here we go—here is my Cherry Tomato Shortlist for 2020. Please share your favorite cherry tomato varieties with me in the comment section.

2020 Cherry Tomato Selection

Sun Gold

First and foremost, above all, I will be planting my beloved Sun Golds. I’ll say it over and over, even shout it from the rooftops, Sun Gold Tomatoes are the best cherry tomatoes EVER! I love them! They are little balls of sugary sunshine. They have thin skin, are sweet as can be, have a delicious fruitiness, and the plants are heavily productive. What’s not to love?! I have planted Sun Gold tomatoes in my garden every single year since discovering them.

If you can only plant one tomato, make it a Sun Gold!

(FYI: I have also grown Sun Sugar, to do some side-by-side comparison with Sun Gold. The differences are almost indiscernible. So, if you can't find Sun Gold, but you can find Sun Sugar, then give Sun Sugar a try! These are the sweetest varieties I have come across.)

Sunpeach

This variety is being called the sister to Sun Gold. The same breeders who bred Sun Gold, bred Sunpeach. This variety apparently has sweetness that rivals Sun Gold, with just a splash of tang. According to Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Sunpeach has less acid than Sun Gold. The fruits are a pink-to-red color, slightly larger and more elongated than Sun Gold, and born on long trusses. I’m excited to grown Sunpeach, myself, and see how they truly compare to Sun Gold!

Sweetie

One year my in-laws grew Super-Sweet-100s from a nursery transplant, and they were the most amazingly sweet, red, perfectly round cherry tomatoes ever. They were like CANDY! Since then, however, trying these from two different seed sources has not yielded those same incredible fruits. Nectar (from Park Seed) didn’t measure up either…or Sweet Million (Although, my neighbors did love Sweet Million—more, even, than Sun Gold). So this year, in my continued search to find a small red cherry, with all around excellent flavor and sweetness, I am trying Sweetie. Hopefully all of the descriptions I have read about them are true, and not just for marketing purposes. I have consistently read that they are “deliciously sweet”, sweet enough for a “dessert tray”, and that they have “high sugar content”.

Tomatoberry Garden

I grow Tomatoberries every year, because my in-laws love them. They are my father-in-laws favorite cherry tomato—he is always telling me how he thinks they are much better than Sun Gold because they have a true, delicious tomato flavor, rather that just pure sugary sweetness. These are meaty (especially compared to most cherry tomatoes), 1” strawberry-shaped, red tomatoes, and they do have a perfect hint of sweetness. The key to growing the best tomatoberries, however, is to let them get fully ripe & red—they are not as tasty if you pick them still orange. Tomatoberries never crack and the plants are always beautifully productive.

Black Cherry

I tried an indigo variety of tomatoes a few years back and found myself fairly disappointed with the taste, or lack thereof. I have also grown a couple other “black” cherry/saladette varieties that ended up being strongly acidic or mealy-textured. This year, I am hoping for better results with Black Cherry. From the sounds of it, the plant produces hefty loads of rich, sweet, burgundy-colored cherry tomatoes. Some have commented that they have a unami-like or smoky quality to them, akin to that of the infamous Cherokee Purple tomato. We shall see!

Yellow Pear

Yellow Pear is a polarizing heirloom tomato variety. I have heard either glowing reviews of it’s productivity and mild sweetness, or awful reviews of its boring taste and soft texture. I’ve finally decided to try growing it for myself. Will I hate it or will I love it?

Juliet

I’ve followed Allison from @FinchandFolly, on Instagram, for years now. Her favorite tomato is Juliet, and I finally started growing Juliet last year. It’s a solid performer. The plant dependably produces a multitude of meaty, bright red grape tomatoes. The flavor is good, not as good as Sun Gold, but really is there a tomato better than Sun Gold?! If your garden is prone to tomato diseases, try growing Juliet. Allison told me that, one year, she lost every tomato in her garden to blight, except Juliet.

Blush

Blush is a larger, 2” long grape tomato variety, that is primarily golden with some red striping. This bi-color, blushing beauty has flavor that is described as being exceptionally sweet & fruity. Some also describe the flavor as being somewhat tropical—like a tangerine. Sounds right up my alley! This tomato is in the Artisan series, along with the Bumble Bee tomatoes.

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes are the BEST!