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the plotholder next to my halfplot is convinced there is a thief about because all her gooseberrys have gone she says birds don,t eat them!! and i must admit all i,v found around my bush is a few half pecked ones  it,s a nasty feeling that there might be a human thief around (we are all used to the other kind aren,t we?) then today in the garden newspaper it says someone has actually seen  squirrels stripping a bush full of small unripe ones  :o i wonder are they eating them or just storing them :-\ surely they don,t like them any way i checked yesterday and mine seem alright  what do all you peeps think has anybody witnessed this?
marg

Marg I put a post on earlier about this, apparently we do genuinely have a goose gob thief on our site,they have tried to catch him but never have, he nicks the gooseberries from several sites all in the same night and always just when you think they are almost ripe. I have had my bushes 5 years and have never had 1 gooseberry yet, I am going to tie curtains on mine this week with draw strings at the bottom.

XX Jeannine

the gooseberry bush at the bottom of my plot is dripping with them and neither I nor the chap on the otherside like them - tried one last week just in case, but they are so sour that they actually gave me goosebumps down both arms (is that how they got their name ?) and made my mouth go horribly dry  :-X

Pigeons

Quote from: Eristic on June 06, 2007, 23:02:39
Pigeons

No doubt about it

Pigeons are almost certainly the culprit. I've seen them at it with my bushes! Their latest trick is to pick them and drop them uneaten on the ground. Last year I had a fruit cage covering the bushes and had a bumper crop: the three friends who helped us pick went home laden and left us with so many that the freezer is still bulging. But in the snows earlier this year the cage collapsed; although the bushes are heavily netted, I'll be lucky to get a decent picking this year.

Not squirrels in my case: never seen one at the plot.

Pigeons!!!

pigeons - I have it on good authority that they have all recently been on a "discover the advantages of eating unripe goosegogs" course. One spotted the other day  feasting on somebody's bullet-hard fruit.

I too have a lady on the next door plot who is absolutely convinced that thieves took all her soft fruit (goosegogs and currants) a couple of years ago .. yes but they were birds!

In our parts squirrels are much fussier - they only go for the strawberries.

It is NOT pigeons on our site. There is never even 1 left and never 1 dropped and  the man has been seen but not caught. He only ever takes the gogs, never the currants, blueberries,strawberries  or raspberries, and he goes in fruit cages to get them!!!

What a cheeky so and so. I've got this frog thing that says something when someone goes near it. That would make him jump, wonder if it works in the dark.

mmm she doesn,t think it,s birds as there isn,t any bits around the bush like mine which is the other end of the site and yes some peeps thought they had been nicked from last year infact on the other side of yate a bloke got sent down for nicking from another site and gardens so it can,t be him. we are rural and right by a wood and the writer in this mag reckons he saw squirrles at it mmm i am nearer the hedge than she is ?  who knows :-\
marg

Pigeons took all mine last year. Covered the bushes with net curtains and have got gooseberrires again this year.

...you could use some of this paint on laxative that my hubbie is treatening to use on the front garden if its vandalised again.

Its talkes 15-30 seconds to work and a mearest touch causes the bowels to liquify  :-X

I would probably forget and eat them myself. !!

have a bucket handy

ps - this stuff is banned here i think

May I ask what is the true purpose of this  poopy stuff.

I remember years ago there was dog  tape worming pill,I forget it's name, anyway you gave it to the dog and within  a minute or two it passed the long complete worm, it was pretty scary stuff, I still don't understand how it could work so fast

XX Jeannine

This conversation needs a government health warning  :o :o :o :o

As a cat deterrent?
Sounds good! Where can I paint it?