Birds - "our feathered friends" or not???

Latest post from MARKSVEGPLOT – a blog about food and gardening in England”

I am as keen as the next man to live as far as possible in harmony with Nature and to avoid doing harm to other creatures, but recently my patience has been sorely tested. I am under siege by birds!

The other day I planted out my Broad Bean seedlings, but the Pigeons have attacked them, chomping off the growing-points of several plants:

This is what they should look like.

I see those as baby plants just at the start of their lives. A Pigeon sees them as a tasty morsel for immediate consumption!

Hopefully the plants will survive and will put up some more stems. In fact I know that some people advocate pinching-out Broad Beans just like Sweet Peas, to produce bushier, more compact plants. That’s not what I want though, and I shall take steps to protect my property!

Those wire grilles (shelves from the mini-greenhouses) were all I could think of in the short term, but I doubt whether they will help much. I’m hoping their unfamiliar presence will worry the Pigeons, as well as going some way towards stopping the Blackbirds furtling around in the compost.

As a second line of defence I got Jane to give me some offcuts of ribbon from her store of crafting materials and I have attached them to the canes, so that they blow around in the wind:

I thought there was a nice irony in this choice of ribbon…

Meanwhile, I have got fed up with the blooming Blackbirds kicking the compost off my Asparagus bed so I have covered it with a piece of chicken-wire. It won’t stop them, but it will make their game a bit more difficult.

Notice that there is nearly as much compost outside the bed as there is inside it!

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