Same problem here. I have lost entire 10x2m beds of young brassicas in mere minutes to wood pigeons. Soul destroying when you have put all of that effort in to raise them to the planting-out stage. I finally got serious this year and ordered 20 metres of 4 metre wide 7mm mesh netting, to protect against both pigeons and cabbage white butterflies, then erected a 1 metre high wooden frame around the whole bed to support it. It'll be a pain to move it all when I rotate the crops next year, but I am determined to have home-grown greens on my plate, not fat woodpigeons waddling around looking smug!
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
I found what was left of a pigeon on my front lawn today, once we had droves of them then we got a fox in the woods, the pigeons have legged it apart from the odd unlucky one every couple of days. On the farm we shot them and they went into a pie, I think H&S may have something to say about you shooting up the street though
something is eating through the stems of my runnerbean plant leaves, I have put down slug pellets but there is no sign of them. Do you think it could be pigeons causing the damage ?
Pretty unlikely-it is usually slugs-did you put the pellets down before you saw the damage? and if it rains heavily they become pretty ineffective, so it is a case of keep doing it until the stems become too tough for them to fancy
We have lots of wood pigeons too. Hopefully when the lastof our conifers comes down we wont have so many as they do nest in it. They are a real pest...and ugly too !
Hello, I am also troubled by wood pigeons and I live in an urban area! There is a pair who persistently roost in our apple tree and even sit on top of my rotary washing line, when I shoo them away they stare down at me as if to say.. "You go away". Then they coo very loudly for hours and get on everyone's nerves, they do this at 5.00am every morning as well. I have been told they hate the smell of WD40 and will steer away from that. The only thing is, how to administer this - Any ideas?
Wood pigeons just 'got' my brassicas in a raised bed too - the remains are now covered with a fleece, temporarily until I get some finer mesh, and I'm in hope that some will regrow as the pigeons seemed to go for the big leaves not the tender centres. There are some newer-sown ones coming up, under a cloche, so I'll make sure these get covered too when the cloche is removed.
Will also try the sticks in the ground to deter them (and cats!) elsewhere in the garden.
I also loathe these flying rats. I have a beautiful mature acer in my front garden and the bu**ers snap twigs off for their nests. As they breed all year, that's a lot of twigs and my beautiful tree has lots of holes in it now. I researched ways of preventing this damage, but from all I read, they're are basically x number of pigeons per acre or whatever. If you kill 100 of them, 100 from elsewhere will take up the slack. When I moved here 30yrs ago, there were some pigeons, now they are everywhere as are their piles of droppings. Short of a major cull - of which I would be a big fan - there's not much that can be done, sadly.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
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Same problem here. I have lost entire 10x2m beds of young brassicas in mere minutes to wood pigeons. Soul destroying when you have put all of that effort in to raise them to the planting-out stage. I finally got serious this year and ordered 20 metres of 4 metre wide 7mm mesh netting, to protect against both pigeons and cabbage white butterflies, then erected a 1 metre high wooden frame around the whole bed to support it. It'll be a pain to move it all when I rotate the crops next year, but I am determined to have home-grown greens on my plate, not fat woodpigeons waddling around looking smug!
I found what was left of a pigeon on my front lawn today, once we had droves of them then we got a fox in the woods, the pigeons have legged it apart from the odd unlucky one every couple of days.
On the farm we shot them and they went into a pie, I think H&S may have something to say about you shooting up the street though
Frank.
I lost my first early sewing of lettuces to pigeons down the allotment so i feel your pain!!
something is eating through the stems of my runnerbean plant leaves, I have put down slug pellets but there is no sign of them. Do you think it could be pigeons causing the damage ?
Pretty unlikely-it is usually slugs-did you put the pellets down before you saw the damage? and if it rains heavily they become pretty ineffective, so it is a case of keep doing it until the stems become too tough for them to fancy
Hello, I am also troubled by wood pigeons and I live in an urban area! There is a pair who persistently roost in our apple tree and even sit on top of my rotary washing line, when I shoo them away they stare down at me as if to say.. "You go away". Then they coo very loudly for hours and get on everyone's nerves, they do this at 5.00am every morning as well. I have been told they hate the smell of WD40 and will steer away from that. The only thing is, how to administer this - Any ideas?
I use holly sprigs - stick them in the soil around and among new plants. Helps deter cats too. Much as I don't like the pigeons, I find cats worse.
Wood pigeons just 'got' my brassicas in a raised bed too - the remains are now covered with a fleece, temporarily until I get some finer mesh, and I'm in hope that some will regrow as the pigeons seemed to go for the big leaves not the tender centres. There are some newer-sown ones coming up, under a cloche, so I'll make sure these get covered too when the cloche is removed.
Will also try the sticks in the ground to deter them (and cats!) elsewhere in the garden.
I also loathe these flying rats. I have a beautiful mature acer in my front garden and the bu**ers snap twigs off for their nests. As they breed all year, that's a lot of twigs and my beautiful tree has lots of holes in it now.
I researched ways of preventing this damage, but from all I read, they're are basically x number of pigeons per acre or whatever. If you kill 100 of them, 100 from elsewhere will take up the slack. When I moved here 30yrs ago, there were some pigeons, now they are everywhere as are their piles of droppings.
Short of a major cull - of which I would be a big fan - there's not much that can be done, sadly.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.