Growing your own - is it worth it?

[Bryn]

I don’t know if the hot weather is affecting them but if you can’t keep badgers out from your garden, growing your own is really not worth it. I put up a wire fence round my two strawberry patches. No use. Even the pegs which were originally used for a fence to keep horses in were pulled out and thrown away. They ate all the ripe ones on their first outing and all the green ones the following night The only thing left to try is an electric fence but I could buy enough strawberries to last me for the rest of my life with £110. Broad beans and carrots will be the next to go...

Back in the '60s (remember them?) we used to get a delivery of lion dung from the then nearby Billy Smarts winter quarters. That was very effective in deterring a wide range of unwanted mammals from the garden. These days I often look out of a back window to find a mature vixen curled up sleeping in her own little patch in the overgrown one time lawn, (we are adjured to keep the grass long for bumble bees and other pollinators today - well that's my excuse, anyway).

[doversoul1]

Back in the '60s (remember them?) we used to get a delivery of lion dung from the then nearby Billy Smarts winter quarters. That was very effective in deterring a wide range of unwanted mammals from the garden. These days I often look out of a back window to find a mature vixen curled up sleeping in her own little patch in the overgrown one time lawn, (we are adjured to keep the grass long for bumble bees and other pollinators today - well that's my excuse, anyway).

Lion dung; Since badgers have no natural enemies, I wonder if they understand the implication. I too have a large patch of overgrown one time lawn for bees and birds, and badgers and rabbits...

[french frank]

Lion dung; Since badgers have no natural enemies, I wonder if they understand the implication. I too have a large patch of overgrown one time lawn for bees and birds, and badgers and rabbits...

I used Silent Roar pellets which were designed to keep cats away (little cats stay away from big cats). Didn't work though.

[umslopogaas]

The New Naturalist book on badgers (written by an old friend of mine, Tim Roper) says the only effective ways of keeping badgers out of the garden are an electric fence, or a physical barrier such as a fence or a wall. The latter must extend below ground, since badgers burrow, and is therefore extremely expensive. Chemical deterrents and ultrasonic devices dont work.

[Dave2002]

Slightly interesting this, as I know badgers are around. I saw one scrambling to the side of the road and into the undergrowth not too long ago, but I'm unaware of them causing a particular problem at my end of the road. Are they like rats as in "you're never more than 5 metres (or something like that) away from a rat"?

[umslopogaas]

They are nocturnal and you dont usually see them in the day (unless dead by the side of the road - there's a corpse just down the road from my house). So they are certainly around, and probably commoner than you think. Fortunately they dont come into my garden: I have rabbit and deer fences, which they could easily tunnel under, but they dont. Repairs are needed, however, because I have just started seeing rabbits in the garden.

[gradus]

A few years back badgers staged an invasion of our allotments but after causing havoc fortunately never returned. We do however continue to host regular visits from deer, rabbits, moles etc. In fact I spend as much time or more protecting crops from critters as actually gardening. Hey ho.

[jean]

How near do badgers get to cities?

We have foxes of course, and rats and squirrels, but I've never heard of badgers round these parts.

[Dave2002]

A few years back badgers staged an invasion of our allotments but after causing havoc fortunately never returned. We do however continue to host regular visits from deer, rabbits, moles etc. In fact I spend as much time or more protecting crops from critters as actually gardening. Hey ho.

Some of the critters in some allotments round here would appear to be of the human variety, as many strawberries disappeared over one or two nights.

[Dave2002]

Looks as though slugs and snails round here are still the major problem. I thought that potato leaves might be immune, but something has been at them, and my suspicion falls on these gastropods.

[umslopogaas]

#653 How near do badgers get to cities? The New Naturalist book has a section on urban badgers and says that urban populations are increasing, especially in southern England. They cause problems by damaging gardens and undermining foundations. The Protection of Badgers Act 1992 makes it illegal to interfere with a badger sett without a licence from DEFRA. The problem is made worse by the fact that (in one survey in Brighton), 29% of households put out food for nocturnal animals; half of those households put out food every night.

[jean]

There's a woman who puts out bread on our local railway[sic] station. Always in the same place.

I did assume she was putting it out for the birds, but there is a clear rat-run nearby and I have notice a large sleek rat gorging himself, so I thought I should tell her.

"Oh they're not rats - they're fieldmice!" she said.

[doversoul1]

Jack and the Beanstalk

A neighbour who is a regular prize winner at the village garden show had one look at my potato plants and said ‘All tops and no bottoms’.

Some of my potato plants are well over 5feet high. Potatoes have grown quite tall in the past but nothing of this height. Come to that, a lot of my broad beans are easily six feet high and so far, not many beans on them (I have trimmed off the tops) and what there are are still very small. And one of the foxgloves I have left amongst the broad beans must easily be ten feet height. They are not under or near any trees.

What makes all my plants grow so tall? This started three years ago when the peas grew over seven feet high. The main nourishment is well rotted horse manure, and I use a small amount of granular fertiliser but this isn’t new, so it can’t be what I feed the plants with that is making them so tall.

The seeds are from Marshalls, Dobies etc., and not from any specialists companies.

[Lat-Literal]

A neighbour who is a regular prize winner at the village garden show had one look at my potato plants and said ‘All tops and no bottoms’.

Some of my potato plants are well over 5feet high. Potatoes have grown quite tall in the past but nothing of this height. Come to that, a lot of my broad beans are easily six feet high and so far, not many beans on them (I have trimmed off the tops) and what there are are still very small. And one of the foxgloves I have left amongst the broad beans must easily be ten feet height. They are not under or near any trees.

What makes all my plants grow so tall? This started three years ago when the peas grew over seven feet high. The main nourishment is well rotted horse manure, and I use a small amount of granular fertiliser but this isn’t new, so it can’t be what I feed the plants with that is making them so tall.

The seeds are from Marshalls, Dobies etc., and not from any specialists companies.

Ah, can I just say that I hope my thread doesn't duplicate - it should perhaps stay focussed on flowers etc and avoid discussion of vegetables.

I would like to know the answer to your question so hopefully someone can help. Could anyone also please advise if a bag of treated manure which looks like bark/wood chip is mainly bark/wood chip or rather that manure could look a bit like bark/wood chip if treated? I am sure that some of it is bark. It was delivered and did come with good reviews.

[gradus]

A neighbour who is a regular prize winner at the village garden show had one look at my potato plants and said ‘All tops and no bottoms’.

Some of my potato plants are well over 5feet high. Potatoes have grown quite tall in the past but nothing of this height. Come to that, a lot of my broad beans are easily six feet high and so far, not many beans on them (I have trimmed off the tops) and what there are are still very small. And one of the foxgloves I have left amongst the broad beans must easily be ten feet height. They are not under or near any trees.

What makes all my plants grow so tall? This started three years ago when the peas grew over seven feet high. The main nourishment is well rotted horse manure, and I use a small amount of granular fertiliser but this isn’t new, so it can’t be what I feed the plants with that is making them so tall.

The seeds are from Marshalls, Dobies etc., and not from any specialists companies.

Assuming that you're not planting tall varieties - some of the old peas will grow to 10 feet or more and I've had potatoes that produce very long straggly foliage - perhaps it's an over-high Nitrogen content in your soil. Was your neighbour correct with the 'all tops no bottoms' remark? Do the un-manured parts of the garden produce the same results? Perhaps the horse manure was mixed with something that bumped up its Nitrogen content and adding Growmore or similar has just made things worse. Maybe don't manure this year and see what happens next?