Help MBE grow his dinner 2012

furball

Definately one of those day's. I have finally killed the fence:eek:I was digging out a tree so i could make more room for my apple tree to be planted.(the little tree in front of my fence, not the big one) The only thing that must have been holding up the fence was the tree root so fence gone from this
to this Guess what i am doing tomorrow. :mad: The annoying thing is i had ordered some beech whips to grow in front of the fence, oh well i will have a new fence half way down and a full length beech hedge. Good job i got over 2 tons of compost so i can still grow veg hopefully. oh and to top it all the back garden that was ready for seeding is COVERED in hundreds of catkin like things, will have to wait till they have all dropped before i can seed the lawnn to be. What a day. Oh and just to add its not even my fence its my neighbours, but she is a pensioner and lovely, the other half belongs to another neighbour, she isn't lovely, she can replace her own fence

emiff6

mrbadexample wrote: »

I have abstained from having a bird table as the place is crawling with cats. Not so much lately, since I put all the spikes on the fence etc, but they still get in. :mad:

Don't worry about cats, your garden is very open with good lines of sight, and birds are very cat savvy (especially robins!), and won't be too bothered, beyond sitting on the fence and making "chip, chip, chip" warning calls at it. And a cat spotted is a cat undone. It will soon give up and move on.

emiff6

My back garden has gone from this:





to this:





And this is all the direct sun I get at this time of year, from about 3pm to 4.30pm on the bottom 3ft of garden.

(sorry about picture size - photobucket is playing silly bu@@ers and although I've resized them, they won't copy as small images for some reason. Been at it half and hour, and given up for now)
edit: well would you believeit, not PB - MSE preview window playing silly bu@@ers then!

mrbadexample

I am liking your new door and fence.

aliasojo

Ooooh very nice emiff6. The new fence really makes the difference.

mrbadexample

emiff6 wrote: »

Don't worry about cats, your garden is very open with good lines of sight, and birds are very cat savvy (especially robins!), and won't be too bothered, beyond sitting on the fence and making "chip, chip, chip" warning calls at it. And a cat spotted is a cat undone. It will soon give up and move on.

Ok, now whilst I like birds, I'm not paying to feed the beggers. They are welcome to help themselves from my garden as long as they do not decimate my crops (I don't mind sharing a bit). Starlings are currently robbing the straw from one of the beds for nesting material, and I had a blackbird ambushing worms this morning. That's all good.

I'm not about to start buying bird food - I've seen how much my dad gets through - buckets of fat balls, bags and bags of nyjer and other seeds plus table scraps. :eek:

I would have no objection to erecting a feeding platform, but there'd never be anything on it, and I don't want to get their hopes up. I waste so little that there's not much going in the way of scraps, and what there is goes in the compost bin.

So, how can this old miser encourage robin to hang around?

emiff6

mrbadexample wrote: »

I am liking your new door and fence.

You won't be able to see it for long - I have plans...

First I've got to replant the 3 clematis I dug out, plus the the pots of cuttings I took in September in case the original clematis died when I dug them up (they didn't ), then there's a jostaberry sitting in a tub that needs to stretch its legs, some rasps which should arrive any day, sweet peas (I hope), and later on runner beans.

I also have two roses grown from cuttings in pots, but can't decide whether to plant them against the fence or not. One's a climber (Golden Shower), the other is a rambler, similar to Rambling Rector in appearance and very sweet scented, but very vigorous. I may just release it into the wild among the hawthorn, willow and dog roses around the playing fields

aliasojo

mrbadexample wrote: »

So, how can this old miser encourage robin to hang around?

What about a nice piece of garden art on the side of your greenhouse?

furball

emiff6 that's fab, gives me hope for my fence. You must be very happy it looks lovely:T

emiff6

mrbadexample wrote: »

So, how can this old miser encourage robin to hang around?

What about a bird bath then? Until you get around to digging out a bird friendly pond? Drinking and bathing places are at a premium in these water-short days. It doesn't have to be fancy. I use two plant pot saucers, (two, because there is usually a queue - as soon as one bird starts to splash about, they all want a go), one is 6" diameter, the other is 10", but very shallow.