No Wonder The Neighbours Think I'm Bonkers

Can you  spot anything odd at the end of my veg garden?

It may just look like a load of bin liners tied to a cherry tree, but, in fact, it's a load of bin liners tied to a cherry tree for bird protection purposes

Once again, it's  time for this year's instalment of Will Kathy Get Any Cherries Or Not. Last year it was definitely Birds one Kathy nil. At the moment the fruits are no more than hard green marbles, but already they are being stripped from the trees. It does seem early even for the birds, and I am suspicious of squirrel activity. I have been experimenting with live catch squirrel traps, so far without success, but my brother in Wales has had great success with his , so I'm going to persevere, and will let you know how I get on.

But to deter the birds I am using the plastic bag technique as in previous years but I will be keeping a careful watch on them too. I have tied bin liners on the branches with the heaviest crop - I have to admit they do look a bit odd, to say the least, but I am determined to get at least some cherries this year.  

I am also trialling a new product (at least it's new to me) made by Agralan products, who are a local company based near here in Ashton Keynes. They sell quite a few green gardening products, so I was quite keen to give them a try. The product is, Buzz Off  and the idea is to stretch a thin plastic line tautly between two points and when the wind catches it, it makes a noise that birds can't stand, and they fly away, hopefully cherry-less. At first I couldn't get it to make any noise at all, but I soon realised you have to have quite long lengths, around 5 yards/metres for it to work, and eventually I was able to detect a kind of whirring noise a bit like distant helicopters. Presumably birds don't like helicopters.

So having set up the lines last night I went out to check the situation this morning, expecting to feel like an extra on the set of Mash (helicopter background, do keep up...) but surprise surprise, there was no wind, not a breath. Boiling hot day, no wind. The plastic bags seem to be ok so far, and when the wind did eventually blow a bit, the lines did work too. In fact it takes very little breeze to set them going. It would be great if this simple measure really made a measurable difference. I wonder if it would work on the strawberry patch?

 I will report back on how effective these measures are. I really would like to get a few cherries this year...

Breaking News - Last Minute Reprieve for A N Rodent

Arthur Norbert Rodent, you have been found guilty of extensive and recidivist burglary of broad beans and peas. However, the court has been informed that it is possible that your death sentance can be commuted to life banishment from the Greenhouse, by courtesy of this device -

This is an electronic rodent scaring device, intended for use in the house and which I have used  when we have had odd mouse incursions, especially in the winter when they seem to come in for a warm. Anyway, it seemed to do the job OK, so I think I will try it in the greenhouse. I don't know why I haven't thought of it before. Luckily I have an electric point in there so I will give it a go and hope that Arthur Norbert Rodent will get his lunch elsewhere and I won't have any corpses to deal with. Will report back on success/failure rate. Has anyone else tried anything like this?

The Case for the Prosecution

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I place before you Exhibit A in the case of Doyle versus Arthur Norbert Rodent of  Greenhouse Footings, Carters Barn, Wiltshire.

Every year I lose a proportion of seeds to mice. They are particularly partial to pea and bean seeds, and since I know this, I should really take precautionary measures to prevent my early sowing of broad bean seeds ending up like this. I always sow peas and beans in trays or pots, as they are just devoured if I sow them outside. You will note, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the way the defendant has chewed his way through the skin and devoured the inside of the seed, leaving behind the discarded skin as DNA evidence.

There is a fairly healthy population of wood mice around here, and frankly I don't like killing them, but they come into my greenhouse at their peril. So it's mouse traps, and/or poison. I wish there was a way of scaring them away, but if I don't take steps now, I will be overrun by summer.
So, donning my black cap, I find in favour of the plaintiff Doyle in this case and do prounounce the sentence of this court that A N Rodent be summarily despatched to the Great Mouse Cemetary in the Sky.

A Bunch of Primroses for Peter Rabbit

Our garden is surrounded by open countryside, and so we are often visited/plagued by rabbits. Our dog, Mo has great fun chasing them off, but this is only ever a temporary respite since rabbits seem to have a similar short term memory to me and will just reappear the next day or even later on the same day.  I have non gardening friends who enjoy watching bunnies and even foxes running around the garden, and whilst this is lovely if you have a No-Gardening Garden, ie large lawn, the odd mature tree, few tough shrubs and a trampoline, if you have any kind of herbaceous or veg garden, to which rabbits have access, it will be decimated. I have even lost young trees to rabbits who have chewed away the bark all around the main trunk leading to death of the tree.

So what's to be done? I've thought of arming myself against the enemy so to speak, I could take to wearing a monocle and blasting my way around the garden with a blunderbuss, but although I am quite a good shot if I say so myself, it would clearly be somewhat dangerous for the neighbours, so here at Stalag Carters Barn we have opted for chicken wire all around the perimeter.We have to inspect and repair our fortifications each spring because Peter and his friends chew their way through it but in this way we usually manage to keep them out for at least the main growing season.

If you're in a rabbit area and can't fence them out for any reason, your only option is to either enjoy the wildlife display as my neighbours do, or to try to grow things that they won't eat. And there are some things that they don't seem to like as much as others. I was thinking that if rabbits ate primroses we would have none in the wild, so I'm guessing they don't like them for some reason, and hoping that this is the case I've planted up a little bed by the front gate that normally houses a weeping cherry tree and some snowdrops and nothing else, because, being outside the gate it's also outside the 12 foot razor wire/cctv/wailing sirens that constitute the Carters Barn garden boundary.  When I first came here I put some bedding plants in this little bed - big mistake. They were gone in a week. Anyway the primroses seem to have survived the first few days, so time will tell whether or not Peter Rabbit likes primroses for lunch, - let's hope not!

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