sandeyeEnvironmental and ornithological reasons for a vegetable patch
October 21st 2008 00:48
We had another bout of rain last week, along with the necessity to recharge my camera batteries this offers no new pictures. However, lack of camera and decent weather does not stop life being lived in the yard - the birds lived on!
I have been busy hacking up lawn to create an extensive vegetable plot in the back of the yard. Both the delight of tasting fresh and 'real' organic vegetables and having a naturally relaxing pastime appeal to me, but also the concerns of the future lead me to progress.
As gas prices soar, local produce is becoming cheaper. DIY remains the cheapest option, and as it is highly unlikely that the governments will implement renewable power sources as mandatory in the near future, prices will continue to rise. I therefore choose to grow my own as much as possible, and have begun the extensions required to enable me to provide 50-75% of our ow vegetables.
What has this to do with birds? Quite a lot! The white-faced heron strides amongst the longer grasses to devour many bugs that might otherwise hamper my crop growth, for example. Exactly - encouraging the birds by providing suitable and appealing habitat also helps my crops!
This also goes for other birds. Whilst I provide my dinner table and starving teenage son with healthier foods, I also provide the birds with their meals and they assist to allow me to do so - mostly. The wagtails and bulbuls eat nasty pests, as do the magpies...
The exceptions are the doves and cockatoos. Unfortunately, doves are partial to digging their beaks into the soil to munch newly planted seed. Cockatoos, sighting a ready-crop, make it their meal before I can harvest it for ourselves.
Doves may eat anything from radish to pea seeds. I do not mind, except that I put out seed for the pigeons and doves on my doorstep - so would prefer them not to go beak-diving in my vegetable patch! The way I try to get around this is to dig over a small section of veg patch at a time, and leave it a week or two before planting it. This sometimes foxes them and allows the crops to grow. I also grow small patches of one item close to patches of another - for example 20-30 radish may sit between a row of coriander and 3-4 potato plants.
There is little that can be done to stop a hungry flock of cockatoos from diving into a yard and munching anything they fancy. For this reason, I have learned not to grow sunflowers with the aim of obtaining free seed for the pigeons or self, nor to allow corn to flower and seed for the pigeons after producing a few cobs. If I try to extend the life of such plants, the cockatoos will amass and steal my attempt!
Oh well, at least it means new opportunities for photographs!
I have been busy hacking up lawn to create an extensive vegetable plot in the back of the yard. Both the delight of tasting fresh and 'real' organic vegetables and having a naturally relaxing pastime appeal to me, but also the concerns of the future lead me to progress.
As gas prices soar, local produce is becoming cheaper. DIY remains the cheapest option, and as it is highly unlikely that the governments will implement renewable power sources as mandatory in the near future, prices will continue to rise. I therefore choose to grow my own as much as possible, and have begun the extensions required to enable me to provide 50-75% of our ow vegetables.
What has this to do with birds? Quite a lot! The white-faced heron strides amongst the longer grasses to devour many bugs that might otherwise hamper my crop growth, for example. Exactly - encouraging the birds by providing suitable and appealing habitat also helps my crops!
This also goes for other birds. Whilst I provide my dinner table and starving teenage son with healthier foods, I also provide the birds with their meals and they assist to allow me to do so - mostly. The wagtails and bulbuls eat nasty pests, as do the magpies...
The exceptions are the doves and cockatoos. Unfortunately, doves are partial to digging their beaks into the soil to munch newly planted seed. Cockatoos, sighting a ready-crop, make it their meal before I can harvest it for ourselves.
Doves may eat anything from radish to pea seeds. I do not mind, except that I put out seed for the pigeons and doves on my doorstep - so would prefer them not to go beak-diving in my vegetable patch! The way I try to get around this is to dig over a small section of veg patch at a time, and leave it a week or two before planting it. This sometimes foxes them and allows the crops to grow. I also grow small patches of one item close to patches of another - for example 20-30 radish may sit between a row of coriander and 3-4 potato plants.
There is little that can be done to stop a hungry flock of cockatoos from diving into a yard and munching anything they fancy. For this reason, I have learned not to grow sunflowers with the aim of obtaining free seed for the pigeons or self, nor to allow corn to flower and seed for the pigeons after producing a few cobs. If I try to extend the life of such plants, the cockatoos will amass and steal my attempt!
Oh well, at least it means new opportunities for photographs!
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