Butterflies!!!!!

[CJS]

Last year my brassicas were devastated by butterflies, I got through it but not with out pain. So this year, butterfly netting . . . but 10x4m was £25 at least . . . searched t'internet, as you do, came up with Boddingtons bird netting, they say the 10x12mm mesh keeps flutterbies at bay as well. At £10.92 inc postage for 10x4m seems a good idea . . . :

http://www.boddingtons-ltd.com/forestry ... etting.htm

I'm also having trouble with birds this year, digging up seeds and seedlings? I wonder if my 'bird feeders' are having the side affect of attracting the birds, catch 22? . . . are the birds more desperate than last year??

So, netting duly arrived, great . . . problem! . . . handling the plastic netting is a pain . . . and keeping it on the supports in any wind . . . Any way, the solution I came up with . . . clothes pegs, works a treat, clip down one corner, then work round, single handed job. You should have seen Hazel and me on Saturday before the brain wave of clothes pegs, it was comical:



CJS

[Monika]

We use a lot of netting for different purposes on the allotment and I found clothes pegs too weak to hold them down in our windy climes, but have bought some really strong large clips at a local hardware store. Can't remember the make, but some were black and bright yellow and the others light blue and dark blue. They are really strong and will hold netting and fleece safely without damaging them.

[Clive.]

We have a large number of "pegs" made from old fence wire...they are shaped like a very elongated J and can be used pushed into the ground to anchor nets or can be pushed in and out of nets to "stitch" two sections together....very difficult to explain in type...but very useful in reality....

Clive.

[Primrose]

I wonder if the plastic clips used for sealing food bags (from Lakeland and other places) would do if ordinary clothes pegs are insufficiently strong against the wind.

On the question of whether bird feeders encourage birds to forage amongst your vegetable areas, I've found completely the opposite. Once the birds know there's a permanent food source available, my experience is that they go straight to it and concentrate on feeding there, using up as little searching energy as possible. This seems to apply particularly at this time of year when they have youngsters to feed. We're starting to get an increasing number of pigeons and wood pigeons visit us but they rarely go near the vegetable growing areas if there's food available on the bird table.

[glallotments]

We had far more birds on our feeders this year and mentioned this yo a guy at one of the RSPB reserves. He said that the bad winter had meant that they had used up more of the naturally available food over winter and so were coming into gardens more.

Also I guess you are watering seedlings so with the really dry weather it will probably bring worms nearer the surface around seedlings and make the more readily accessible to worm eating birds. Also really dry ground is much harder for bird to sift through especially if it is clay which goes rock hard.

[Monika]

Before the long dry spell broke, we had to net all the plants in the vegetable garden at home because our local house sparrows nibbled all the leaves (peas, beetroot, lettuce etc) and everything looked shredded. We gave them a large shallow bowl for water(as well as already having a bird bath), but in the end we had to cover the beds with netting. Now that the ground is damp, things have improved.

On the allotment, the netting is against larger birds like rooks, jackdaws, partridges and pheasants who can clear and devastate a whole bed of plants in one evening!

[Primrose]

Monika - so often I've felt frustrated about the lack of vegetable growing space in our garden and yearned for another allotment but when I read of all the problems that people have with their plots and wild animals, I realise that the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

The one good thing about growing vegetables in your garden, especially when you're retired, is that you can often be on hard to chase some of these predators off whereas allotments have long periods of time when they're unoccupied by people, which make them a nice quiet venue for wild creatures to come and graze. It must be incredibly dispiriting to put in all that effort only to find an entire crop has disappeared overnight.

Because many of the gardens around us are planted mainly with shrubs rather than flowers, I suspect that keeps some of the butterflies away, but if I catch any of the cabbage whites trying to lay their eggs on my immaculate kohl rabi plants, they'll get what's coming to them !