Kitchen Garden Forum

That just about sums it up Motherwoman. No deterrent at all these days. No wonder they get away with it.

Beryl.

Beryl

I have only one word to say to you...BADGERS!

.... this year will be the first in eleven that I have managed to pick 'all' my gooseberries
Badgers will strip gooseberry bushes overnight when the fruit is ripe and even pick up the fallen ones too. The reason for my success this year is that I have the bushes in a chicken wire sided fruit cage with boards all round the base butting up to slabs
Other Badger delights are....Sweetcorn, carrots, strawberries and they love rooting around potatoes to get at the worms

Thanks Weed, I know about all the other 'Badger delights' and could add to that list but gooseberries we were not convinced they would attack prickly bushes with so much else around to eat.
Think we are just doing the lottie just to feed the wild life these days.
hey ho something else to protect.

Beryl.

Hi Beryl

My previous post was my first for some time...I knew that I might be tempting fate when I wrote it...and I was
I arrived on the allotment this morning to find the little beggar (I think its just the one now) had been raiding the gooseberries again...it had climbed over the 2' high boarding and wormed its way under the 9' tall wire fence behind....I have now heavily stapled the wire to the boarding
When I suffered my first attack a few years ago I thought the same as you that the badger wouldn't like the prickles in fact I too thought it was a two legged thief...no such luck
We had rain yesterday and its muddy paw prints were very visible.. plus it left a clear message in the form of a toilet pit
Our site is surrounded by at least three large badger setts plus we get incoming visitors from a neighbouring parkland. The Council haven't the money to fence so its left to the plot-holders to do what we can....plus any action the Council do propose is thwarted by the local Badger Society... a very powerful lobby group

I'm very sorry to hear that Weed. Once they have decided to dig a latrine they will keep on coming back to the same hole. As you probably know badgers are partially blind so will use the same trail by smell. However many you have more than one will use the same hole.
Best of luck in blocking his route.

Beryl.

Now I've seen it all our allotment warden feeding badgers on the telly.
She was never a popular warden now there are calls for her resignation.,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... gle_South/

Beryl.

Beryl

Perhaps you could have her culled

Not idea Alan, long time ago she did the same thing to our allotment. The Priddys Hard was being developed and a sett needed to be enticed from under some garages which were in the way of the new road going through. That's how we got our first lot.
We got rid of her as warden a few years back, now know how she got the job back perhaps it is now time to do it again. Better go before I say too much.

Beryl.