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Well, in previous years it was plagues of greenfly and flea beetles and tonnes of grey mould. This year it appears to be blackbirds (though the sparrows have had a darn good go at pretty much all of my peas...
).
Just went out to find that they'd dug up five more well established bean plants, severing the roots, and that they'd had a good go at pretty much all the remaining chard, beans, pumpkins, courgettes and celeriac. Needless to say I am a bit stuck (not to mention down around 20 bean plants, four pea plants, three chards, three garlics, oh, and all 40 of my dwarf beans as they came through) and as well as plant loss have had many things slowed a lot due to root damage. 
I am trying to think of a way I can net over the base of things yet still allow the climbing things through the netting somehow to train them up trellis and poles, but can't get my brain to come up with anything. There's not too much room between plants as each of the three beds are 1m square and things are very closely planted in the square foot style. Either that or a mulch that would discourage/prevent the digging? Has anyone got any ideas that could help me solve this and stay positive about the whole thing (short of making medieval pies of course, though I'm way tempted...)?
). Just went out to find that they'd dug up five more well established bean plants, severing the roots, and that they'd had a good go at pretty much all the remaining chard, beans, pumpkins, courgettes and celeriac.
Needless to say I am a bit stuck (not to mention down around 20 bean plants, four pea plants, three chards, three garlics, oh, and all 40 of my dwarf beans as they came through) and as well as plant loss have had many things slowed a lot due to root damage. I am trying to think of a way I can net over the base of things yet still allow the climbing things through the netting somehow to train them up trellis and poles, but can't get my brain to come up with anything. There's not too much room between plants as each of the three beds are 1m square and things are very closely planted in the square foot style. Either that or a mulch that would discourage/prevent the digging? Has anyone got any ideas that could help me solve this and stay positive about the whole thing (short of making medieval pies of course, though I'm way tempted...)?
I think I'm going to have to part net bits next year too (not sure if they can fly in if I leave the top off the net cage though...) and plan really carefully to lessen damage. Course, they Would have hit the seed library seeds worst with only ten of each of those... ;(
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