crop protection

[tom00_uk]

is there any thing you can dust over salad leave to make them unpleasant to birds?

one of the veg areas was full of all most ready to harvest lettuce until this evening when i watched a large flock of sparrows greedily devour most of it

i know some folk use chilli powder to stop squirrel taking bird food, so thats out,

netting wont work as dont want to use it

[Kayleigh]

I dont know of anything to dust on your crops but if you have any old cds they might work or try some of those kids windmills that might put them off a bit other than that some sort of cage.

[Jackaroo]

Not a problem we have in these parts cos if we had lettuce ready to harvest at this time of year it wouldn't be growing anywhere that birds would get at it.
I can't think of any substance that would deter birds without making a salad crop inedible to humans anyway but have had success in the past, albeit later in the season, with just the strategy suggested by Kayleigh. Stringing out anything that moves with the wind in a random way across the plot usually puts them off.

Good luck,Jackaroo

[Kayleigh]

You could always plant a berberis they will eat this instead..

[Jackaroo]

I find that interplanting has some success. For instance, I often plant sage with my onions and can safely say that I've never been bothered by wild turkeys.

[Kayleigh]

Its normally the pigeons in my garden that eat everything I have never seen the sparrows at it.

You could try Jacks method but I dont think it will work somehow..

[King Edward]

Why don't you want to use netting? If it's out of concern about animals getting trapped, you might try thin horticultural fleece instead.

[Kayleigh]

You can get a variety of cloches to grow salad leaves and other small crops that are ideal for keeping the birds off ans are safe as they cant get their feet caught up.

Look up harrod horticultural..

[tom00_uk]

cd's and shiny things dont work, only have to look at the field at the end of the garden with these bird scarer in to see the large numbers of birds feeding under them, only when the air gun is on do they take off

harvested most for dinner tonight with some garden water cress, the rest is protected with the pea sticks made from the plum tree prunings that were leftover from the first few plantings this season

[tom00_uk]

sparrow hawk is helping, sat there drinking a coffee and less than 10ft away from me it took an offending house sparrow as it busily chomped on a leaf