Cabbage Protection

[Lonnie]

To all you Veg growers, if you don't mind divulging, what method do you use to protect your Cabbages from Pigeons?, I use cds glued back to back, so the silvery side is always reflecting, just thought, apart from shooting, one of your methods might be better. Thanks.

[allotment10]

we always net over the cabbage patch,bit of a pain in the a**e when you need to weed and hoe up, but we cut gaps inbetween & tie up afterwards so it's easier to get inbetween the plants, don't know if this will help but try www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles1004/pigeons.asp

[Lonnie]

Thanks allotment10, I might try that with the follow ons,

[WendyS]

I used to have problems with wood pigeons nibbling the greens in my vegetable patch until I started putting out wild bird seed on my patch and bird table. Now they make a bee-line for that and never go anywhere near the cabbages. However, we rarely see feral pigeons so perhaps we're lucky. I did notice in the Lakeland summer catalogue just out that they are selling, some balls with holes bored into them at right angles into which you can slot canes to make up cages over which you can drape netting or fleece to prevent birds accessing your fruit bushes or plants. It occured to me that you could probably use old tennis balls with small holes punched into them, or even large potatoes or oranges which might serve a similar more temporary purpose.

In my case Lonnie, it's the darned white butterflies which lay their eggs & turn to caterpillars which are the bane of my life. They really devastated my broccoli crop last year while we were away for a few days.

When my cabbage & broccoli plants are young, I protect them with makeshift cloches made out of 5 litre plastic mineral water bottles with the bottoms cut off, and anchor them by putting a stick through the top, which also acts as a ventilation vent. These are also ideal to protecting young tomato & courgette plants when the spring nights are still a little chilly.

[Lonnie]

Thanks a lot Wendy, i've made a few notes from your post, they'll come in handy.