RSPB needs all your bestest tips!

[Flummery]

Let me know if you want a wildlife pond or mini garden meadow pic Birdiewife.

[Birdie Wife]

Just had another thought, is anyone else an avid skip diver?! I love looking at what people are chucking out, and if there's a way I can use it instead of going to landfill, that's a good thing, yes? Obviously it's good to ask the folks who are chucking it out... Lately I found a huge old farmhouse kitchen kettle, which I intend to use for comfrey tea!

Thanks Earthbabe, Flummery and vertangie, I'll pass your offer of photos onto my colleague...

[wild garden]

Hi all
Millions of thanks for all the useful tips, they are greatly appreciated, keep them coming in as I know I will have overlooked something somewhere along the line! Thanks also to Birdie wife for posting the request in the first instance.

While I have a landscape background, it has been more of the commercial/industrial kind and I have never really had cause to become involved with vegetables or fruit, which is where my knowledge is lacking most.

I am particularly interested in veggie garden tips. I am aware of some practices where wildlife and our own needs to grow food can be accommodated. For example, vegetables that have gone to seed provide a good source of food for birds.

What about growing clover on grass paths that divide vegetable plots? Bees will be attracted to the clover and while doing so help pollination of the crop?

The kind of pictures I am after are from vegetable gardens where wildlife friendly actions are being carried out, for example vegetables going to seed, or wildflowers growing between the vegetables for insects, etc. The pictures would need to be a minimum of 300dpi, and in actual size fill an A4 or A3 sheet. If you have any you think fits the bill, then please email me and I will let you know how to get them to me.

Many thanks again
Wild garden

[vertangie]

When do you need the pics by. I've got a great area that's over grown with fox gloves and other things that bees love, nestled inside is several raspberry bushes and a lovely dry stone wall behind it.

Just waiting for the raspberries to start rippening so you can get the effect.

[Rowan]

A pond is a must, but make sure anything that climbs or falls in can get out. Build in an escape ramp, or put a stone or branch right at the edge. Fishing dead birds and hedgehogs out is not pleasant, and even frogs need to climb out at times. The pond doesn't have to be big, and ideally you should let it fill with rainwater (a couple of days should do it, the weather we've had recently!) If you have small children, you could dig out a sandpit for now, and turn it into a pond when they're older.
Be tolerant - live and let live - there WILL be mice and rats in the garden. So long as they keep out of the house, leave them alone. A wildlife friendly garden is friendly to all wildlife - you have to have the food-chains.
If you insist on deadheading all your flowers and killing all insects - or if you concrete/deck/pave over most of your garden, then don't grumble about never seeing birds and butterflies theses days!

[SueA]

I try not too use chemicals & let any self-seeded wildflowers etc. carry on growing in the veg. patch to attract pollinating insects, I have Welsh poppies & red campions popping up everywhere & also plant calendulas & marigolds near veggies & toms. I leave aphids unless they become a bad infestation as the blue tits enjoy picking over the tips of the roses & trees to find them. I don't have any but believe a patch of nettles is useful as it also attracts a lot of pollinating insects & provides food for lots of different creatures.

[alanh]

Because of possible hygiene problems with bird feeders, why not plant carrots, parsnips, etc. at the back of your flower borders and let them go to seed? This will allow garden birds to forage naturally.

alanh.

[Birdie Wife]

When do you need the pics by. I've got a great area that's over grown with fox gloves and other things that bees love, nestled inside is several raspberry bushes and a lovely dry stone wall behind it.

Just waiting for the raspberries to start rippening so you can get the effect.

Hi vertangie, sorry I haven't replied for a while, also thought I'd better point out I posted the original question on behalf of wild garden, in case anyone was confused by that! Have you tried PM'ing wild garden? I'm not sure if PMs will reach his personal account so I'll email him too.

Thanks for everyone who's provided tips so far, please keep them coming! Has anyone noticed any noticeable results from companion planting? Or the other way round, avoiding planting anti-companions - plants that affect each other negatively? I'm wondering how well this actually works?

[Siskin]

Hi
Since I'll be studying wildlife conservation myself at university this year, I'm also very interested in wildlife and do everything I can to encourage them to my garden. I don't use any chemicals at all, and the garden pond provides a habitat for frogs which mop up the slugs. I have a bird feeder and table which I top up regularly. I have a wildflower border, and have planted grass seed on one of my two plots which I don't cut, to provide a habitat for froglets and insects. I have left thistles to grow, which attract butterflies and bees, as does the bindweed (which I keep trimmed back away from my veg!). I have left a large area untouched which contains many twigs, brambles, and other plants which the hedgehogs enjoy. I have a log pile under the nettle patch which is home to fungi and insects, and maybe the odd mouse. The compost heap is home to frogs and many insects. I don't trim back the privet hedge during the nesting season. I recycle as much as I can, using plastic bottles as mini greenhouses. I allow leaves to rot on my plot to increase the organic content of the soil. The resident song thrush also keeps the snails in check :-) I have planted a buddleia bush for the butterflies, and also keep as much cover in my garden as I can over the winter months for the insects.

[wiccanlou]

On my allotment there is a plot that has been left and it has been declared the nature reserve. It has a pond, budlehia (i think thats how its spelt) grass that is never cut just the dead bits cleared away and left to let mother nature do her thing. We have newts, lizards, toads, frogs many many birds, rabbits, and foxes. I'm going to see if I can do more to encourage the wildlife in because we have a low slug and snail count thanks to certain animals and not so many nasty pests which makes it easier to grow without pesticides.

[nick the grief]

I've put the bird feeder down in the bottom corner and just left the area to go wild - all the seeds end up sprouting anyway so I thought it would be good not to have to spend the summer weeding the area. I did seed some wild flowers too, the patch is about 6' x 6' and the insect, birds and cats love it. (The birds know when the cats are active and avoid it then)

I let my whole allotment go wild

[nick the grief]

... for Sustainable Gardening

You may or may not know I work for the RSPB, and I've been asked by a friend I know in the Conservation Advisory section for some advice on sustainable gardening, as he wants to put out an advisory leaflet. I couldn't think of a more knowledgable and experienced bunch of people to ask than you lot! We already have the basics covered, eg making compost, saving rain water, companion planting and peat-free, so I'd like to see if there's any tips out there that may not be in the books, original thinking and maybe something that no-one's thought of before. It would cover ornamental gardens as well as veggie plots.

Photos are in short supply, and good pics of sustainable gardening that people have achieved in thier own gardens would be most welcome. If you wouldn't mind your photo being included in the leaflet, and you have a high res version of it, please post a low-res version here too.

So come on you guys and gals, I know you won't let me down!!

I can't really add much to whats been said already BW. I don't use much peat compost, I tend to use John Innes so that helps also you don't seem so get so many problems with pest like vine weevil in JI so you don't need so many sprays.

I've been a member fo HDRA for some time but have recently joined the seed bank although I already save my own seeds from some veg ( Chantenay carrots, onions, leeks, peas, & beans).

I've stopped buying Manure as all I seem to do is get sh*t loads of weeds!! no matter how long I store it for.

I can't remember where it was I saw it but I have seen a foto of someones plot and they had loads of the blue barrels everywhere on their lotty and they had a small roof over them ( bit like a lych gate at a church) and used this to collect water when it rained to fill the barrels ( which doubles as wind breaks as well).

The bottom of my garden will be a wildlife garden ( I picke some rose hips the other day and will sow them to grow a nice rose hedge.

but mainly don't be too tidy, leave the odd pile of rotting logs for the beetles and such to shelter in.

[SueA]

Tomorrow Saturday 27.10.07 is RSPB 'Feed the Birds Day', there are lots of events on around the country to make feeders etc. Lidl also has special offers on from Monday 29.10.07 with bird feeders & food etc.
http://www.lidl.co.uk/uk/home.nsf/pa...1029.index.ar7 Lidl link
http://www.rspb.org.uk/feedthebirds/index.asp RSPB link