Pigeons eating my cabbages

[DazzerelliParticipant]

Hi Charles,

Oh no! I thought I had my spring cabbage well netted but some fat pigeons must have ganged up and sat on the netting and then pecked the cabbage through the holes. A day is all it took from the plants looking great to the top halves being completely skeletal.

I guess I need the netting higher up and much better supported. I noticed that you use use big wire hoops with loops in the wire at the ends, presumably to hook the netting on or loop restraining string around. These look like they will be far more affective than my efforts so far. Where did you buy the wire from and what gauge do you find works best? Is it possible to make hoops tall enough to lift the netting above plants as tall as Purple Sprouting Broccoli, or do you use something different in this case?

Thanks,

Darren

[Rocket ScienceMember]

Hi Dazzerelli,

Why not invest into some enviromesh? Just needs to be laid over the top of plants and weighed down with stones, bricks or pegs. Those hungry birds wont be able to get through that. Useful for many more pests in summer, root fly etc and provides some insulation in winter. Lasts years. For tallest plants like P.S.B and Kale use string pulled through mesh wrapped around stones on the ground to stop it blowing off. Bit like you would with guide ropes on a tent.

Robin

[Pete BuddParticipant]

They seem to have gradually got to be more and more of a problem and I have tried various things. I agree with Rocketscience that enviromesh is good although I was put off for years due to the cost. For the last 2 years I have been using home made frames clad with pond netting, (I think its about 10mm sq mesh), this keeps butterflies off as well.

[DazzerelliParticipant]

I’ve tried using enviromesh but, as well as looking unsightly in my garden and making maintenance a pain, it seemed to create such a cosy microclimate that the plants were covered in whitefly which billowed out whenever I touched the mesh. Like you Pete I’m looking at making my own with the aim of them being both affective and easy and quick to use as well as looking ok. The best design I’ve seen so far is one with wire hoop supports with string criss-crossed from one side of the bed to the other holding the covering in place on the wire. The covering can be slid up and down between the string and the wire for maintenance/harvest/ventilation. The RHS Veg growing book describes how to make them and Joy Larkcom’s Growing your own veg also mentions them. One neat feature is a small loop in the wire, near the soil, that the string can be looped round. Hopefully the 3.5mm wire that I’ve sourced will be strong enough.

Darren

[RosMember]

I am trying to mix all my veg up on the plot so that I have individual plants dotted around – no need to cover them – this is meant to confuse pigeons so they don’t find the brassicas. I have tried this at home in raised beds where it has been very successful so far even though we feed birds on the lawn next to the veg beds and the pigeons come to feed along with the more welcome birds.

But on a demonstration allotment I am involved in it was good until we got the snow and then all the brassicas were eaten. We will try with dangling cd’s and foil next year and see if we are more successful! As with a demonstration allotment we do things in different ways to find out which are best – and we have a good supply of brassicas under netting which are doing fine – although the snow did weigh down the netting and needed clearing off and a few supports had to be adjusted.

[Pete BuddParticipant]

Hi Ros; I have tried all sorts of bird scarers and I cannot really claim that any was the ultimate deterrent. I think that any percieved success was not really due to the bird scarers at all. Pigeons are very tolerant of human activity and if they are hungry they will be in, as soon as you walk away. Local farmers use loud gas powered scarers to limit the crop damage and scarecrows can be quite innovative sometimes. I had a flight of fancy the other day, when I was in my creative mood, and conceived a solar powered, air operated, inflatable scarecrow, which would lie deflated most of the time and rapidly inflate when the air pump was charged up. However; I need help with the engineering

Pete

[charlesModerator]

 Scary stuff Pete.
I am pleased this spring, so far, with simple black netting, as long as it is suspended far enough above the leaves. As you say, pigeons are so tame: I even got close enough last spring to hit one with a hoe handle, missed and regretted it when the handle broke!

This year I have netting on hoops over spring cabbage, as described by Darren (they are also in my Winter Veg book) and for the taller kale plants I knocked some fence posts at the ends of a bed and then nailed battens on top of them, making a cage which my net is just wide enough to cover from side to side, held by a few stones along its edges. So far so good, we shall see.

[grannyjannyParticipant]

IKEA sell net curtains called lili, I think they’re £5 a pair & a pair just covers our 18’x5′ beds in length with plenty to spare width ways. It’s a VERY fine mesh too.

[SpadelessAdeParticipant]

Ooh, I think I’ll try the Ikea net curtains grannyjanny!  Thanks for that idea.

[bluebellParticipant]

I was looking for something that I could use across the door of the greenhouse and they could be just the thing!

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