I went down to my allotment this afternoon, I felt like crying, we have been waiting for the corn to rippen as this is my first yr and wanted to taste fresh corn on the cob, guess what, they had all been eaten, all the cobs where sitting on the dirt all nibbled, and all the unripe ones had been disgarded I put my tools away and come home, could not face the doing anymore, I know that I will be back tomorrow but I was so sad, I think it was badgers as my neighbers have had theres eaten as well boo hoo :'(
Aaaw, I am so sorry you have lost your corn, and your neighbour too. There is nothing I can say that will make you feel better. :( I hope they had stomach ache afterwards!
T.
It is so dishertning sometimes, if it is not one thing it is another, you can understand sometimes that people give up allotments and go back to the supper market, but that will not be me, I will get there
I know how you feel. It is the combination of knowing I am growing something that will be better than the supermarkets that keeps me going, in that it will be fresher and no chemicals on it. And I love the being there and the chatting to people etc. I have lost a few crops this year, and I have literally 2 parsnips growing so will save them for my christmas dinner! It has definitely not been my best year for crops. :(
It has been the best year for weeds though!!
T.
Things like this can make you feel so sad.
I lost all my potato crop last year,this year I have done well.Last year i had a huge amount of beans and this year very few.
It is full of joys and disappointments. :)
I really feel for you as I had a similar experience last week. Only had my plot 8 weeks and it hadn't been used for 20 years so there is a lot to do. I managed to get a small piece of ground ready and transplanted some sprouts from my mums garden onto it. I had been warned about the rabbits so managed to rig up an assortment of canes and nets to try and keep them out. All went well for 6 weeks but I went up one day last week after very heavy rain and it appears the rain had enabled the net to sag enough for the pigeons to get to the sprouts. Eaten the lot to the ground! I was surprised just how upset I was, I loved those sprouts :-\. Must admit at first I picked my bike up and was about to turn round and go back home but I had taken some peas with me that I had planted in pots at home to plant out and so I decided to get on with it. Six hours of weeding later (where else can six hours feel like two?) I felt much better. Went up yesterday and the peas are doing well. Very high netting on them to keep the pigeons out and rabbit poof fence goes up tomorrow. I am very new to this as I don't even have a garden at home so am not expecting miracles but am loving it so far. Now if only I could clear those weeds that have established themselves over the last 20 years...............
Oh that is rotten kingfisher. I am sending you a hug to help you feel better ....(((hug))). Perhaps next year you can flummox the pesky badgers and put 1.5/2 litre pop bottles over the cobs when they are getting near to being ready - keeps mice and birds away too. Do a search for fuller details - perhaps something like "protecting sweetcorn"??
twinkletoes
I will post a picture Sunday. 31
The picture is of a solution to prevent repeat attack next year.
A friend sent me the design but scanning it is not possible do to the material it is drawn on.
So I will build a mock up for you and take picture of it.
Rats can also be a problem. If you put plastic bottles over the cobs when they're small and the cob grows into it and can't be attacked. I haven't tried it myself just saw this suggestion somewhere after mine where eaten last year.
Sorry Twinkletoes that's what you already said...obviously didn't read yours very well!
Quote from: Kea on August 28, 2008, 13:59:53
Rats can also be a problem. If you put plastic bottles over the cobs when they're small and the cob grows into it and can't be attacked. I haven't tried it myself just saw this suggestion somewhere after mine where eaten last year.
You dont put the bottle on when the cobs are young, you put them on a couple of weeks before they get ripe.
Quote from: twinkletoes on August 28, 2008, 10:57:27
Oh that is rotten kingfisher. I am sending you a hug to help you feel better ....(((hug))). Perhaps next year you can flummox the pesky badgers and put 1.5/2 litre pop bottles over the cobs when they are getting near to being ready - keeps mice and birds away too. Do a search for fuller details - perhaps something like "protecting sweetcorn"??
twinkletoes
Thank you twinkletoes for your hug, I did not go to the allotment today I still feel realy yuck about it, may be tomorrow
Quote from: texas01 on August 28, 2008, 10:28:07
I really feel for you as I had a similar experience last week. Only had my plot 8 weeks and it hadn't been used for 20 years so there is a lot to do. I managed to get a small piece of ground ready and transplanted some sprouts from my mums garden onto it. I had been warned about the rabbits so managed to rig up an assortment of canes and nets to try and keep them out. All went well for 6 weeks but I went up one day last week after very heavy rain and it appears the rain had enabled the net to sag enough for the pigeons to get to the sprouts. Eaten the lot to the ground! I was surprised just how upset I was, I loved those sprouts :-\. Must admit at first I picked my bike up and was about to turn round and go back home but I had taken some peas with me that I had planted in pots at home to plant out and so I decided to get on with it. Six hours of weeding later (where else can six hours feel like two?) I felt much better. Went up yesterday and the peas are doing well. Very high netting on them to keep the pigeons out and rabbit poof fence goes up tomorrow. I am very new to this as I don't even have a garden at home so am not expecting miracles but am loving it so far. Now if only I could clear those weeds that have established themselves over the last 20 years...............
Thank you, I feel sad for you too, there is so many disapointments to veg growing, hope you get on well with your lottie, if there is any advise that I can give you is to do a soil test before you do anything, as I started in late april and in my hurry to get lots of veg in I just dug the ground and planted, it turns out that the soil was to acid for my braisiacs and I have thrown most of them away, they where very poor in growth and went to seed as soon as the top developed, Cabbages where just eaten by slugs then caterpillers, well anyway what I should have done was to put in some lime and Potash, oh and I think I have a Borran deficency, I realy hope you can learn from our mistake and get a better result than me, My lottie had not been worked for about 8 yrs Good luck
Quote from: thegreatgardener on August 28, 2008, 13:00:36
I will post a picture Sunday. 31
The picture is of a solution to prevent repeat attack next year.
A friend sent me the design but scanning it is not possible do to the material it is drawn on.
So I will build a mock up for you and take picture of it.
Thank you very much, I will watch out for that, cheers
Sorry about your sweetcorn Kingfisher I have 70 sweetcorn plants and already some have disappeared but not by Badgers but *fatherless children* hope to be picking the first this weekend :)
QuoteThank you, I feel sad for you too, there is so many disapointments to veg growing, hope you get on well with your lottie, if there is any advise that I can give you is to do a soil test before you do anything, as I started in late april and in my hurry to get lots of veg in I just dug the ground and planted, it turns out that the soil was to acid for my braisiacs and I have thrown most of them away, they where very poor in growth and went to seed as soon as the top developed, Cabbages where just eaten by slugs then caterpillers, well anyway what I should have done was to put in some lime and Potash, oh and I think I have a Borran deficency, I realy hope you can learn from our mistake and get a better result than me, My lottie had not been worked for about 8 yrs Good luck
Thanks Kingfisher, I'll be back on here tomorrow evening. Would be lovely to read that you went to your lottie and enjoyed it. Many thanks for the soil tip, I need all the tips I can get!!!
I,m afraid it,s a them against us thing all the time in this game ! with me this year it,s carrots :'( I think it must have been a rabbit bit them all off as soon as they were 2" tall. I resowed but it was too late for any decent size ones
I used bottles last year and have just put them on this years crop as 2 have already been got at. I cut the neck off a 2ltr bottle them slit it down 1 side so it just slips on the cobb.I found it best cut 2 of the nobbly bits off the base just to let some air in. here is a pic of them last year
(http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i229/theothermarg/gardening/cobprotection.jpg)
and here is the difference it made (the nibbled one didn,t have a bottle on it)
(http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i229/theothermarg/gardening/sweetcornbottleexperiment.jpg)
hope this helps
marg
sorry but badgers do not eat vegetables they are meat eaters and do a great job of keeping down vernim like rats etc
badgers are omnivores and will take corn quite happily as they opportunist like most foraging type animals.
http://www.badgers.org.uk/badgerpages/badgers-06.html (http://www.badgers.org.uk/badgerpages/badgers-06.html)
when you have a bias welsh assemly which wants to exterminate all badgers in wales because they are blaming them for bovine turbercilosis and not bad farming methods i would be happy to let these poor creatures have my entire crop but they are a large animal and i would be surprised to see then i hope you are lucky enough to still have badgers with you
I have worked with badger protection groups in Surrey for a number of years and badgers do eat corn. They ate mine in our 1st year of having an allotment but I havent lost any for the last 2 years because I have protected them with chicken wire.
Quote from: Mr Smith on August 28, 2008, 20:06:47
Sorry about your sweetcorn Kingfisher I have 70 sweetcorn plants and already some have disappeared but not by Badgers but *fatherless children* hope to be picking the first this weekend :)
How can you have a fatherless child?
Quote from: theothermarg on August 28, 2008, 21:52:06
I,m afraid it,s a them against us thing all the time in this game ! with me this year it,s carrots :'( I think it must have been a rabbit bit them all off as soon as they were 2" tall. I resowed but it was too late for any decent size ones
I used bottles last year and have just put them on this years crop as 2 have already been got at. I cut the neck off a 2ltr bottle them slit it down 1 side so it just slips on the cobb.I found it best cut 2 of the nobbly bits off the base just to let some air in. here is a pic of them last year
(http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i229/theothermarg/gardening/cobprotection.jpg)
and here is the difference it made (the nibbled one didn,t have a bottle on it)
(http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i229/theothermarg/gardening/sweetcornbottleexperiment.jpg)
hope this helps
marg
Thank you for that I will try this as I do have a couple left, the ones that where not ripe enough to eat Cheers for that
Fecking rats had a lot of mine last year, I actually saw the filthy barstard on the corn, this one wasn't nibbling it the dirty vermin was scratching it to pieces then eats it off the floor, barstard. Bottles are at the ready and going on today as I have a couple that have been malested already. >:( :( ;D ;D ;D
Badgers had mine too, my own fault really, happened last year so constructed half a barrier and forgot to do the rest ::)
Nevermind, will REALLY learn that lesson for next year... ;D
ps, runners and climbing beans have also been awful this year, glad that this year is not my first or may have given up!