Author Topic: Bl**dy Badgers with a sweet tooth!!  (Read 2247 times)

boydzfish

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Bl**dy Badgers with a sweet tooth!!
« on: September 30, 2022, 16:59:48 »
When I got my allotment some years ago I planted a block of sweetcorn. Nobody on the plots mentioned badgers but they just destroyed the entire crop so, since then, I have not tried again. But this year I thought I would try once more so I got some pallets and made a 'corall' to keep them out after I planted them (I also tried the 'three sisters' Sweetcorn underplanted with squash and climbing beans) out. Well it seems we have a group of SAS badgers cos' the little gits still got in and trashed the lot; they also trashed another plot holders crop, not that it makes it any easier to take. Harrumphh!! I will be getting my sweetcorn from the veg shop from now on.......... :angry4:
Boydzfish

pumkinlover

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Re: Bl**dy Badgers with a sweet tooth!!
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2022, 08:18:26 »
How frustrating. Our allotments are called Brockwell, and we used to have damage but not sure how many badgers are still around.

Beersmith

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Re: Bl**dy Badgers with a sweet tooth!!
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2022, 10:19:41 »
Like many others our field has a badger problem.  Three or four years ago they did not appear until autumn.  I think the set was a good distance away and they needed the darker nights to forage safely. A lot of sweetcorn was ready and harvested before they started visiting.

In the last couple of years this has changed.  They now visit anytime. As a result it is almost impossible to grow sweetcorn.  They demolish the things people use to protect their crops with ease, and I have seen some very robust looking protection trashed.

They destroyed my sweetcorn this season when they were only about half formed. They also did a lot of damage to my carrots.  Grown under insect mesh to avoid carrot fly they grubbed out nearly half.

But I did find a way to fight back.  After restoring the hoops and mesh. I put a liberal dusting of garden sulphur around the edges. Amazingly they then left them alone. Sulphur is very acidic and a good sniff is very unpleasant for the nose.  My theory is that the badgers having a very sensitive sense of smell found it unpleasant and avoided it accordingly. In a wetter season it might have been washed away but this year was incredibly dry and I could still detect it's characteristic smell weeks after it was applied. So I did get a crop of carrots despite the losses.

I have no way of knowing if a dusting of sulphur would protect sweetcorn. To be honest I doubt it. But I'll be using it around my carrots in future seasons.  And I will try one last attempt at growing sweetcorn and see if the sulphur trick works.  If it doesn't - like many others - I'll be giving up on sweetcorn for good.
Not mad, just out to mulch!

terrier

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Re: Bl**dy Badgers with a sweet tooth!!
« Reply #3 on: October 16, 2022, 18:20:31 »
I dust my goosberries with sulphur to try and combat mildew, but the last couple of years  I've not had one fruit left on the plants. I put this down to badger raids due to the excessive damage to the plants. If it is badgers, they don't seem to mind the sulphur smell.

ACE

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Re: Bl**dy Badgers with a sweet tooth!!
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2022, 13:52:59 »
Her little lapdog is a poodle/shih tzu cross I call it a sh!t poo. But it needs lots of barbering so I spread the fluff around the allotment to ward off rabbits and it works. It must also work with badgers because they have problems on other parts of the plot but not mine.

Beersmith

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Re: Bl**dy Badgers with a sweet tooth!!
« Reply #5 on: October 18, 2022, 16:32:14 »
I dust my goosberries with sulphur to try and combat mildew, but the last couple of years  I've not had one fruit left on the plants. I put this down to badger raids due to the excessive damage to the plants. If it is badgers, they don't seem to mind the sulphur smell.

I would not rule out pigeons.  Gooseberries can be quite brittle, and a few heavy pigeons can cause a lot of damage.  That said, badgers have a reputation for being happy to eat a wide variety of things.  Do you net them?
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Tee Gee

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Re: Bl**dy Badgers with a sweet tooth!!
« Reply #6 on: October 18, 2022, 18:36:38 »
I have experienced similar problems and it turned out it was squirrels


George the Pigman

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Re: Bl**dy Badgers with a sweet tooth!!
« Reply #7 on: October 27, 2022, 11:36:42 »
They devastated the sweetcorn on our site in suburban Birmingham for three years. We always had problems with birds/squirrels/rats eating the corn cobs in situ but covering the cobs with plastic bottles stopped that. This damage was different though it was like a tank had driven through the plants smashing stems and everything. They clearly had a big set nearby (we are near to a small river and railway line). These new type of urban badger are big wily and very strong animals and can easily get over or under high fences so it is virtually impossible to build a physical barrier to stop them.
This year however I had no damage up to when I harvested them in early September. The main reason I suspect is we have now a resident fox on the plot which may make them more wary about coming on site. Keeps the wood pigeons away as well.

gray1720

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Re: Bl**dy Badgers with a sweet tooth!!
« Reply #8 on: October 28, 2022, 09:13:49 »
Yes, badgers are unstoppable - a friend has an allotment by a railway line, and he has seen the CCTV footage of the beggars shinning over the railway fence, which is six feet plus high with a spikey top. They can climb up, but not down, apparently, so they drop over the other side like drop bears! We have probably had one in the home garden, which is a PITA, luckily it just made a latrine in the lawn and left and hasn't been back, but anything too tempting might get a dusting with extra-lethal Chinese Supermarket chilli powder...
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Tee Gee

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Re: Bl**dy Badgers with a sweet tooth!!
« Reply #9 on: October 28, 2022, 12:10:30 »
I recall us having lots of trouble with Badgers.
In fact, the Council had a purpose made Badger fence along the length of the site, and they still got in.
This was despite digging a 2ft wide trench, then bending the wire netting in an "L" shape to stop them digging under the fence.


 

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