Snick, my father in North Charleston would say, "ONLY 26 plants?". But then we are tomato snobs. He plants more than a dozen varieties with at least four plants of each. He usually forces me to take started plants home when I do my Spring Break visit.
At our old place, I worked to make my garden bigger every year until it got to 14' by 25'. Hubby was having kittens over my "huge" garden. I felt it was close to right. Dad visited and said, "Dang, that's a small garden plot!"
Your birds will love the tomatoes. Our first Summer in the new house I decided I wasn't leaving tomatoes at the old house for Mr. Groundhog to get fatter on. (Much foul language avoided) thing bit off half my cucumber plants that barely had leaves on them! Aargh! Anyway, I'd walk into the backyard with a bucket or pan and my Original Five would come running. I'd throw down the bug-bit and split tomatoes that the family couldn't eat. Talk about stink eye! I swear they were saying, "We liked them the first week. They were good the second week. Tomatoes are no longer a treat, woman!"
As far as keeping the chicks out of the garden: all the chickens LOVED my one squash plant. They pulled off leaves and blossoms. I finally put a poultry net cage around it.
No one in the family wanted to eat the two butternut squash. I should have let the birds eat the dang thing.