Cabbages etc

[lesleygl]

I have some cabbages, sprouts and cauliflowers ready to put out. Am looking for inventive ideas to stop the birds getting them. Don't want to use netting, any other cheap ideas please?

[binley100]

Netting is the only way ........birds get wise to anything else ..

[Leeds_lad]

Shiny Cd's hanging from trees scare off birds

[binley100]

only till they get used to them........

[dominic10]

I put my runner bean seedlings in cut down pop bottles until they grow strongly - this certainly helps protect the seedlings from birds. I also grow the beans at home in pots before planting out. Something that clonks - like a pop bottle on a stick is something I have seen others use but it isn't half irritating. As I live at the seaside this year I have purchased some beach toys - dragonflies on a stick which might do the trick. I use CDs also myself. On the allotment I have taken over recently there was some dense mesh not netting and we have wrapped it round our bamboo poles more to protect the runner beans from the heat of the sun but it would have acted as a bird protector as well. Not sure exactly what it is but birds wouldn't get entangled in it. We are going to ask our allotment shop what it is and buy more to make cages out of it. Good luck with your veggies

[Jeanied]

I have some old freezer baskets which should help mine along a bit - till the plants get too big.

[Two_Sheds]

Shiny Cd's hanging from trees scare off birds

Nope, they don't

I put my runner bean seedlings in cut down pop bottles

... but birds don't eat runner beans ...



Lesley, Your problem is woodpigeons and cabbage white butterflies. The solution is small gauge netting. Believe me, I've tried everything else.

[Shadylane]

It really depends on how tenacious your pigeons are. We have two allotments now. The first one we use spiky sticks which works a treat, although the ones I forgot to protect were still untouched so maybe some other reason. Maybe they prefer the cabbages planted in straight rows

Our second plot in a different location suffers from pigeons, partridges and possibly geese Needless to say the sticks didn't work. One gent up there uses strips of plastic floating and wafting from canes which apprently does work. Well I saw his brassicas and they were untouched. I know others who have said CDs do work, so I really don't think you can say this definitely will or definitely won't work - it really just depends I think. I do believe planting randomly and intermingling with other stuff might at least confuse them a little, though.

Oh and as for the cabbage white, had hardly any last year, despite there being no protection. Had to squash a few eggs but nothing disastrous. I like to think it was the interplanted herbs/flowers but it was probably just a bad year for them.

[Bigmallly]

Old video tape cut into 15" strips and tied to canes.

[Potstubsdustbins]

The beauty of netting, it will also stop the flutterbyes

Colin

[scarletrunner]

Quote--" but birds don't eat runner beans" They ruin the flowers,which amounts to the same thing!

[Two_Sheds]

Quote--" but birds don't eat runner beans" They ruin the flowers,which amounts to the same thing!

Honestly, I've never seen a bird attacking a runner bean flower ~ which birds are after yours? Sparrows? Woodpigeons wouldn't be able to balance on the canes

[dominic10]

It's nice to know birds don't each runner bean seedlings - my info came from one of my allotment share-ees who informed me our crops were being eating by a red legged something or other - we have a nature reserve close buy with lots of different birds, it's a twitchers paradise. This was 3 years ago when after sowing 3 lots of seeds, we covered the beans and eventually had a good crop. Lots of people on our site net runner beans.

[kathyd]

Hi dominic10- the netting you used was probably debris netting. It's green and fine meshed and works well against most things including chickens and dogs .

[J.V.]

Birds can strip runner beans of all their flowers. Not happened to me, but my parents have had problems (sparrows, iirc) - seen them doing it, lost most of the crop. White flowers are claimed to be less attractive.