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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Cardboard

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: yarrow@sfo.com
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Cardboard
  • Date: Sat, 29 Dec 2007 01:24:52 -0800

The plot is at the community garden, so the birds have a lot of choices, mostly weeds. A nearby plot, which is abandoned from Sept to May (the cucumbers and tomatoes slowly rot or are eaten by the rats and birds), has a bright green sorrel plant that looks lush in late fall and has been nibbled to the ground by late winter. I've noticed that the birds like pea shoots best, will eat small seedlings of tender greens when they can, and if nothing else is available, last winter the birds even ate what was left of the comfrey leaves. One spring, gardeners who planted tomatoes early discovered they were irresistible to birds, because few other fresh new greens were available. Large leaves, and leaves that are not at ground level, seem to be safe. The 5-ft. purple sprouting broccoli plants have not been bird-bit, nor have the walking kales, the dino kales, cardoon, or artichoke. They also leave strawberry leaves alone.

So far the birds have not touched the herbs or flowers. I have a large patch of a native wildflower, globe gilia, that reseeds freely, so has lots of seedlings under an inch high. No one has eaten them at all so far.

A lot of birds overwinter here, and many are here year-round. I usually see a bewick's wren around, especially if I leave the lid off the finished-compost bin. I see hummingbirds almost year-round, visiting the first comfrey flowers in the spring and the last of the hummingbird sage in early winter. Today I saw a small flock of sparrows in the neighboring plot's tomato-plant skeletons and taking bites of sorrel.


At 2:39 PM -0600 12/28/07, BirdWalk wrote:
How about planting some winter wheat or some lush type cover crop - a small
patch just for the birds? Hopefully they go for the grass?


-----Original Message-----


I saw birds hopping onto (




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