Suburban Food Growing - Feeding The Family Or The Wildlife?
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Well, at the end of the first major summer (Southern hemisphere) growing season, the scoreboard stands at Local Wildlife 3 Family 1.
The score was calculated on the proportions of who got to eat what - basically the wildlife got to eat 3 times as much as we did.
Basically anything not covered up or fenced in was demolished by the wildlife, seemingly overnight - here one day gone the next. Fruit trees, tomatoes, peas, carrots etc. What the wildlife didn’t get at, our chooks (chickens) helped themselves to.
We tried netting one set of tomato plants, but whatever it was that was eating them had no problem getting past that.
The only things that survived were vegetables grown under a heavy duty wood and wire mesh enclosures. The only problem with that is if the enclosure is made high enough to allow large plants to grow, it becomes heavy and quite difficult to move, so it makes looking after and harvesting the vegetables hard work.
We’re looking round at alternatives for next season there has to be an easier way - possibly moeable mesh tent type enclosures that would be fairly light and cheap, light if not particularly durable.
