OK, so there I am with my nice "wildish" garden, "making room for nature"
and how does it repay me? By having the local residents come and eat all my
strawberries -harrumph!

And it's not just the mice. The blackbirds are getting in on the act too.

So are "natural" and "grow-your-own" incompatible?

Paul "I like nature really" DS.

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On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 09:23:37 +0100, "Paul D.Smith"
wrote:

OK, so there I am with my nice "wildish" garden, "making room for nature"
and how does it repay me? By having the local residents come and eat all my
strawberries -harrumph!

And it's not just the mice. The blackbirds are getting in on the act too.

So are "natural" and "grow-your-own" incompatible?

Paul "I like nature really" DS.

You gotta mesh 'em! Just about everything will want a piece of your
strawberries.
It's worth spending a bit of time ( and cash ) knocking up a dedicated
frame for the mesh, so as to make it easy to lift the mesh ( and
replace it ) when tending/harvesting.
Plastic mesh is fine, but a wire mesh over a treated timber frame will
last many years.

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

In article , Paul
D.Smith writes
OK, so there I am with my nice "wildish" garden, "making room for nature"
and how does it repay me? By having the local residents come and eat all my
strawberries -harrumph!

And it's not just the mice. The blackbirds are getting in on the act too.

So are "natural" and "grow-your-own" incompatible?

It works with compromise - usually on your side not theirs ;-)

try replacing your strawberries with yellow-fruiting ones (I know there
are yellow fruited alpines, and I thought I'd seen a yellow fruiting
large types), and grow a lot of alpine strawberries too - tiny, but far
more taste. Or buy your strawberries and grow instead loganberries,
tayberries etc which seem less attractive and are more expensive in the
shops.

I can't advise on the mice as our cats keep them away. Our blackbirds
take the redcurrants, a small proportion of the loganberries, and two or
three apples, but there's more than enough to go round.
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

So are "natural" and "grow-your-own" incompatible?

No of course not. You just have to grow enough for all of you!
I have tayberries. The birds have the top ones, the rabbits have the bottom
ones and I get the middle ones. Admittedly I also allow a considered
quantity of bindweed which hides some of the fruit and provides a convenient
handle with which to move the branches around.

E