The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Fluffywelshsheep on April 17, 2009, 04:23:01 pm
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http://www.thompson-morgan.com/info/gardening-ideas/wildlife-garden/?OC=WSE126
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Happy to say we can tick all of these -double tick at No. 10.
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Yup, me too, and no 10 is right up there at the top!
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We too can double tick No.10 and most of the others :)
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Scored quite well on these, though our efforts to encourage birds have been fraught. Food left out tends to be missed, as birds entering the garden are at the risk of our ten cats. Feathers on the doorstep today suggests another poor feathered friend copped it while we were out at the allotments. Ah, Me! To try to compensate, we have a thriving pond (but the cats considere frogs a delicacy), and we have piles of wood and logs left for hedgehogs and beetles (though, again, the ones in the garden sometimes fall prey to cats...). We also have those 'insect houses' of drilled logs or bamboo sticks in a container, to provide SAFE refuge for lacewings, ladybirds, and other invertebrates. I'm also a bee-keeper, and though bumble-bees are not a commercial prospect in terms of honey, they do pollinate flowers, many of which are not pollinated by anything else, so i have a few bumble-bee nests around the allotments. That said, most are empty just now. But they've only been there since the autumn, so maybe this year's brood will find them. We're currently installing a small pond at the allotments, but so far it is only part full of rain water, and the only life in it so far was extinguished when four young rats fell in and drowned last night. We'll put in a 'hedgehog ramp' like the one at home, but as it was notionally empty we hadn't got that far. That said, i have mixed feelings about the rats. I've found they dig up and eat crop seeds. Nature's a balance, after all. I'm still working on training the cats to come to the allotment and 'harvest' the rooks, magpies, and rabbits that steal the crops!
Sunny John