Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[yarrow@sfo.com]

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 (