Did you know that goldfinches eat beet and chard leaves? It's true, i saw it with my own honest eyes... my first instinct was to freeze and make the identification. Did i mention that in my youth i was and avid birdwatcher? I believe i saw 143 different species of birds one day during spring migration at Point Pelee... it was part of the Jim Baillie Bird-a-thon, around 1980. You would be hard pressed to do that well today given the massive bird habitat destruction that has happened on this planet in the name of money and progress for the good of humankind... apparently. Let's not step into that dark storm cloud now, the story is far to ugly, stupid and treacherous to kick into on a Friday night that may still have a sliver chance of being productive.
So yea, i like birds, and they haven't actually killed the beets, and at least they are eating them, which is giving them some nutrition, which i can live with. But they were goldfinch and they were eating the plants... google it if you think I'm spinning you one.
My general rule is that if you are a vertebrate and you are actually eating the food you are attacking then your life will be considered on a case by case basis. If i feel the need to net the plants i will net them, the way i see int now is that the beets are still thriving... I'll probably pass on eating the beet greens with all of the holes and the bird shit on them... i can live with that. We can call it fertilizer for the next generation of crops and carry on and tell ourselves that we are doing good.
Glad i started the beets indoors back in February to give them that head start although i was thinking of doing a second planting of seeds to fill in areas of the garden that have space. Hopefully the more mature beets will act as a decoy, but i can imagine any smart bird will always go for the newest, most tender snacks.
We shall cross that bridge when we get there... a great life philosophy, and one that is poignant in gardening. You see last week we thought we were in summer with the sweltering sun blasting away and the locals in their summer shorts. Did i start my tomatoes early enough we were wondering... and now mired in a frigid monsoon we have different concerns. Perhaps more like should I have constructed a makeshift tomato hothouse out of plastic and PVC tubing? If i do tomorrow will that guarantee hot weather to cane me into a "will i burn my plant's paranoia"? It actually happened to me last year... i build a little greenhouse and fried some plants in a few hot days when i let my guard down. The bridge was there but i didn't see it because i had my head up my ass thinking i was all pro and all, and i went from being ahead of the game to being behind the game. It's about recognizing where you are vulnerable and then reading the signs properly to avoid the disaster that has you in it's sights. Avoiding disasters, is one of the best games known to mankind... that's why thrill seekers have such a blast, pretty much an adrenalin addiction when you look at it with a clear head, or a fogged head focused on a task. My argument would be... rather than jump off a cliff in a flimsy flying suit to fly past rock mountain faces at incredible speeds that equate to sure death should a mis-calculation occur, why not change the bar with respect to your vegetable plant survival being the life and death line and you reacting accordingly. You get your obsessive attack orientated daily mindset, which i find healthy, you can scheme, counter attack, pre attack and ride a big harvest... all of the elements are there.
The important thing is to pound yourself on your failures.. make it hurt.. that's what keeps the bar in place... remember of course that this blog is about Man Gardening. If we were writing about a sissy gardening blog, the kind of blog that doesn't even deserve capitol letters... well it would be different. It would be a different blog... shall we pretend?
"Well i went out to my garden the other day... i hadn't been there for a few weeks because i was feeling a little ache... my psychotherapist thinks I am not getting enough Argon, so i started eating mushroom roots because my roommates bearded cousin came over last weekend and told me a bunch of things i wasn't aware of. Apparently the best way to absorb Argon from Mushroom roots is to do a lipper... that's right get it in your mouth like a plug of tobacco. The Argon gas will react with the scintactilaze enzyme naturally occurring in human saliva and your body will set back to natural Argon levels.
When i got to my garden, i smiled and felt good that there was my plot of land and i was a gardener... i figured there was no point snapping into the reality that my garden was in fact a weed infested example of neglect that showed clearly all of my glaring betrayals to the concept of gardening but instead posted a picture of myself on instagram with my gardening hat on... it was then that in noticed that somebody had commented on a post i made in facebook so of course i had to give them a LOL".
OK, enough with that insipid diversion... remember we are just doing comedy here people... don't ride a horse called failure if you ain't ready to be bucked off. Failure complexes need to be fought through with shit eating grins... and beers of course, Me, I always like to have an extra hundred beers on hand as a simple insurance policy... seems crazy on paper but say the apocalypse hits and you have the band over for jam... clearly the thing to do in the event of an apocalypse, as I'm sure creative juices will be flowing. You could easily down 50 beers in scenario like that, which would last you only one more jam... clearly you would be brewing like a badman with a keen focus on securing more propane for the brew kettle and working bartering deals with local wheat and barely farmers, as a reasonable human i have of course already started multiple hops plantations. Still probably a good idea to have a grain field and a cider plantation, i mean apple orchard, for good measure.
So yea, birds eating greens.. wonder if slugs are on the strawberries... back in a few... not that many out there, and most of them were on the basil and the good news was that they were all very small, which tells us that the garden caretaker has been doing as good job with respect to managing the micro slug population. I found a few snails on my wife's Hosta plants and dealt with them accordingly. But i am intrigued by this idea that basil might be planed as a "decoy plant"... slugs seem to like it the most, so you can attract them there and focus on your killing frenzy when the time is right... like every night. Clearly it would be better to have chickens to focus on the slug and snail cull, but i don't have enough property to deal with chicken shit at this time.
So yea, i like birds, and they haven't actually killed the beets, and at least they are eating them, which is giving them some nutrition, which i can live with. But they were goldfinch and they were eating the plants... google it if you think I'm spinning you one.
My general rule is that if you are a vertebrate and you are actually eating the food you are attacking then your life will be considered on a case by case basis. If i feel the need to net the plants i will net them, the way i see int now is that the beets are still thriving... I'll probably pass on eating the beet greens with all of the holes and the bird shit on them... i can live with that. We can call it fertilizer for the next generation of crops and carry on and tell ourselves that we are doing good.
Glad i started the beets indoors back in February to give them that head start although i was thinking of doing a second planting of seeds to fill in areas of the garden that have space. Hopefully the more mature beets will act as a decoy, but i can imagine any smart bird will always go for the newest, most tender snacks.
We shall cross that bridge when we get there... a great life philosophy, and one that is poignant in gardening. You see last week we thought we were in summer with the sweltering sun blasting away and the locals in their summer shorts. Did i start my tomatoes early enough we were wondering... and now mired in a frigid monsoon we have different concerns. Perhaps more like should I have constructed a makeshift tomato hothouse out of plastic and PVC tubing? If i do tomorrow will that guarantee hot weather to cane me into a "will i burn my plant's paranoia"? It actually happened to me last year... i build a little greenhouse and fried some plants in a few hot days when i let my guard down. The bridge was there but i didn't see it because i had my head up my ass thinking i was all pro and all, and i went from being ahead of the game to being behind the game. It's about recognizing where you are vulnerable and then reading the signs properly to avoid the disaster that has you in it's sights. Avoiding disasters, is one of the best games known to mankind... that's why thrill seekers have such a blast, pretty much an adrenalin addiction when you look at it with a clear head, or a fogged head focused on a task. My argument would be... rather than jump off a cliff in a flimsy flying suit to fly past rock mountain faces at incredible speeds that equate to sure death should a mis-calculation occur, why not change the bar with respect to your vegetable plant survival being the life and death line and you reacting accordingly. You get your obsessive attack orientated daily mindset, which i find healthy, you can scheme, counter attack, pre attack and ride a big harvest... all of the elements are there.
The important thing is to pound yourself on your failures.. make it hurt.. that's what keeps the bar in place... remember of course that this blog is about Man Gardening. If we were writing about a sissy gardening blog, the kind of blog that doesn't even deserve capitol letters... well it would be different. It would be a different blog... shall we pretend?
"Well i went out to my garden the other day... i hadn't been there for a few weeks because i was feeling a little ache... my psychotherapist thinks I am not getting enough Argon, so i started eating mushroom roots because my roommates bearded cousin came over last weekend and told me a bunch of things i wasn't aware of. Apparently the best way to absorb Argon from Mushroom roots is to do a lipper... that's right get it in your mouth like a plug of tobacco. The Argon gas will react with the scintactilaze enzyme naturally occurring in human saliva and your body will set back to natural Argon levels.
When i got to my garden, i smiled and felt good that there was my plot of land and i was a gardener... i figured there was no point snapping into the reality that my garden was in fact a weed infested example of neglect that showed clearly all of my glaring betrayals to the concept of gardening but instead posted a picture of myself on instagram with my gardening hat on... it was then that in noticed that somebody had commented on a post i made in facebook so of course i had to give them a LOL".
OK, enough with that insipid diversion... remember we are just doing comedy here people... don't ride a horse called failure if you ain't ready to be bucked off. Failure complexes need to be fought through with shit eating grins... and beers of course, Me, I always like to have an extra hundred beers on hand as a simple insurance policy... seems crazy on paper but say the apocalypse hits and you have the band over for jam... clearly the thing to do in the event of an apocalypse, as I'm sure creative juices will be flowing. You could easily down 50 beers in scenario like that, which would last you only one more jam... clearly you would be brewing like a badman with a keen focus on securing more propane for the brew kettle and working bartering deals with local wheat and barely farmers, as a reasonable human i have of course already started multiple hops plantations. Still probably a good idea to have a grain field and a cider plantation, i mean apple orchard, for good measure.
So yea, birds eating greens.. wonder if slugs are on the strawberries... back in a few... not that many out there, and most of them were on the basil and the good news was that they were all very small, which tells us that the garden caretaker has been doing as good job with respect to managing the micro slug population. I found a few snails on my wife's Hosta plants and dealt with them accordingly. But i am intrigued by this idea that basil might be planed as a "decoy plant"... slugs seem to like it the most, so you can attract them there and focus on your killing frenzy when the time is right... like every night. Clearly it would be better to have chickens to focus on the slug and snail cull, but i don't have enough property to deal with chicken shit at this time.
Another Robertson and a gardener too. My Swiss chard was being decimated by the little buggars. I covered the patch with a large sheer curtain held down with stones. They started to eat other areas. I have gardened here for almost 35 years and this eating of swiss chard, beet greens and lettuce did not start until a few years ago when neighbours started feeding the birds all summer long. Now I have to cover a great deal of my garden if I want anything to eat.
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