I'm a bit miffed that the birds have still not shown the slightest interest in my lovely new feeding post. It's been up since Christmas day. The apples and scraps of bread on the ground get gobbled up by blackbirds, starlings and pigeons (sorry, but boring birds!), but not so much as a sparrow has even looked at the nuts and seeds hanging on the post. I would have thought they'd be queuing up in this weather. I wonder whether my garden is hospitable enough? I have a couple of smallish trees and some small shrubs, but the only hedging I have is coniferous. I am thinking about putting in some native hedging such as hawthorne, and some dense ivy, in a nice thick clump down at the end of the garden, along the fence, which is pretty bare at the moment. Also, I could probably get a little pond in somewhere. That might help.
On the allotment front, I phoned the site manager last week to find out whether any action has been taken with the vandals. Apparently the police have been patrolling regularly, and they have identified and traced several cars seen discharging 'youngsters' onto the rec next to the plots. She has requested a quote for security fencing, but thinks this would be prohibitively expensive, as well as unsightly, which is the reason why it has not been put up before. I visited the other day but couldn't get the spade to penetrate the rock hard frozen soil - it practically bounced back in my face - so I came home empty handed. However, no more damage had been done, and the broad beans are coming up!! The onions are making a very valiant effort as well, despite having been trampled all over by pesky size 5s. The purple sprouting brocolli is looking quite sorry for itself, but you never know, I might get a few sprouts. I'm going to try a new variety this year.
I'm going to have a seed stock-take this week, working out what I've got, what I'm going to sow and what I still need etc, and then putting in my order, all over a large pot of coffee and listening to the radio. This is one of the few nice things you can do in January.
2 comments:
I've got a window feeder and finally after many months of nothing I now have a regular robin visit. It took some thought, I bought some feed that robins like and repositioned the feeder to the patio door allowing the robin to make a stop on the fence then jump the feeder.... and the plans paid off.
Well that's encouraging - I guess I will just have to be patient and think of it as a long term project.
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