After a glorious week of sunshine the heavens decided to open. It was much needed, the bare parched earth of both my garden and the allotment were in desperate need of some moisture. Luckily it seems that because most of our plants were grown in situ – i.e. at the allotment, their roots had had time to develop and gain a foothold. They were coping with the arid conditions pretty well. But there’s only so long a plant can go without a drink!<\/p>\n
Approaching the allotment on Saturday afternoon I recieved a horrified text from Mary. A flock of dozy, bloated wood pigeons had taken to the skies as she’d arrived and been met with view of destruction. The beautiful lines of peas, their tendrils curling and grasping for a twig, had been pecked to the earth. The rows of blossoming salads were now little but stray strands of scattered green, and the strawberries….well, there were none! To have happened in only a few days, it truly was horrific. Our poor little planties had undergone a war that they’d have never won.<\/p>\n
After lazing around on the Sunday after an inpromptu BBQ I strolled over to see the destruction, and as I did so the heavens opened. We sure needed the rain, but after a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the sky had given way to heavy grey forboding clouds and we were soon drenched. Ben didn’t seem to mind, and after hiding for a few moments in the allotment shed, I too decided to weather the storm and put up some preventative measures.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i103.photobucket.com\/albums\/m138\/AnthonyTroy\/Gardening\/07062009114.jpg\")
Ben didn’t seem to mind the rain<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i103.photobucket.com\/albums\/m138\/AnthonyTroy\/Gardening\/07062009115.jpg\")
Huddling in the shed we tried to stay warm<\/p>\n
It’s amazing what you can achieve when vermin become involved. I had naively thought that because last year they’d largely left things alone, that they’d do the same this time around. True, we had many more weeds last year, perhaps this gave our plants some camoflage protection, but those pigeons really had gone for the best. Grabbing some netting – it had sat in the shed for ages awaiting to be used – and a few bamboo canes I set about putting up some makeshift shelters. A few minutes later and our poor beaten down plants now should be able to withstand further waves from the enemy. Six canes, green netting – even with holes in conveniantly the correct places and we were away! This should stop the buggers!<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i103.photobucket.com\/albums\/m138\/AnthonyTroy\/Gardening\/07062009118.jpg\")
Our makeshift defense system should stop those pesky pigeons<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i103.photobucket.com\/albums\/m138\/AnthonyTroy\/Gardening\/07062009119.jpg\")
What’s left of our once beautiful salads<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a glorious week of sunshine the heavens decided to open. It was much needed, the bare parched earth of both my garden and the allotment were in desperate need of some moisture. Luckily it seems that because most of our plants were grown in situ – i.e. at the allotment, their roots had had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1013],"tags":[372,408,415,452,454,456,461,501],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theguidetogaygardening.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}