Search - Articles

and small shrubs, and the birds were sitting on one of the tough child-resistant plants.They were oblivious to the excited line of boys and girls trotting past to class, but continued to explore the branches only a couple of metres from the children

was right and within a couple of hours the first shoots of the season were harvested, gently steamed and served with a knob of butter.The first harvest of purple sprouting broccoli, along with spring birds and emerging blooms have fired Paul and I up about

by the tendency of these little birds to strip yellow flowers, such as crocus, but so what? And don't forget that the adults not only eat weed seeds, but they also feed their young with insects and their larvae. All-in-all, sparrows are a delight and a help

flowers and in shades of orange to burnt amber, but to me a sunflower should be brilliant gold.In the past I've often left the old sunflower heads on the stem to ripen and set seed, providing home-grown bird food. However, many new varieties lack pollen

see several places where I imagined gangly arms had been thrust through to pilfer our fruit. Humph. Oh well. I re-pegged the nets, did a bit of disgruntled tidying and left.The next week we were back. A glorious day, birds singing, clouds puffing

is somewhat cruder, but less barbaric than that of my fellow plotters: I too pluck the caterpillars off, but I gather them up in a bucket and tip the whole lot out on a path. This provides a feast for the birds, and the caterpillars at least have a chance

of leaves, only to emerge during the harvest of crops such as winter kale or purple-sprouting broccoli.Hopefully vine weevil larvae and chafer grubs will also be seriously diminished by the cold snap. I'm also crossing my fingers that hungry birds

with collared doves, even though these birds are much smaller.The easiest way to recognise them, without even seeing them is to listen to their cooing. Wood pigeons have a five-note call, collared doves only three.

sprouts have been superb this year and are still going strong although I can't remember what variety they are.The only job I've really been able to do has been to top up the bird feeders. I've got a couple of peanut and seed feeders hanging in the shrubby

pair of jays.I do occasionally catch a glimpse of these handsome birds, although magpies and crows are the usual corvids in this part of London. I'm not sure what they were up to, but they spent several minutes strutting about on the small area