Alright!
This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com coming at you in HD from the backyard garden,
and today we've got another exciting episode for you.
This is not a fun one, and this one's having to do with pests.
Pests in your garden, and one particular kind of pest you may be having, and I know I am.
Now this stumped for a couple days and I was like, 'what the heck is going on?'
You know, and what happened was this.
I simply came outside and these are my beautiful purple perennial tree collards that under
extreme conditions like the nice hot heat they do flower and go to bulbs and seed, but
that's alright.
You can cut these guys off and they'll continue to grow and I have let these gone to full
term and flower, seed, and then produce the seeds and then cut them back and then the
pant continues to grow and this is simply amazing.
So, this year what happened was they went to seed and this year I came out and all the
seed pods are getting jacked up like, 'okay, John, what's going on?
Usually at the end of the season when the seeds are finally done and dry, the seed pods
will bust open and fall and then I'll have tree collards coming up my wazoo, but in this
case the seed pods are looking all green and they're all messed up and damaged,' and I'm
like, 'man, what's going on here?'
and I couldn't figure it out until I was walking outside just the other day.
So, actually let me show you guys actually what I saw when I was walking outside.
So, now I'm about to go outside and show you guys what those little spur dudes are going
in my thing.
Alright, I got the zoom there.
See that little sucker?
Look at what that little sucker's doing.
There's a little bird, eating my tree collard seeds, little scumbag.
Look at that.
He's snacking out, man.
That's a nice fat source for him.
Totally eating it.
So, we're going to have to prevent him from eating my tree collard seeds anymore.
So, here's the damage to the tree collard seeds.
The birds basically peck these open like little pods.
They eat all the little beans out.
These're not even developed seeds yet, 'cause they haven't been out long enough, but they're
a high source of fat to the birds, and yes we can actually also eat them.
Wouldn't give us a lot of food.
I'd rather save these for the seeds themselves, and, you know, they're really tearing these
guys up.
I don't know if I'm even going to have a good yield of seeds this year 'cause they really
picked the majority of these guys up, and, you know, now because it was highly damaged,
I might not have any tree collard seeds.
So, this is what nature does.
So, we're going to have to be proactive and take some steps that they cannot do this in
the future.
So, come back at you in a second.
So, man, isn't that incredible?
You guys say the little bugger, man.
The little dude was eating my seeds.
I mean, it's all good.
I'm glad I could feed nature, but, you know, he needs to be eating something else, not
my rare perennial tree collard seeds that rarely go to seed, and these seed are quite
valuable 'cause I want to save the genetic diversity to spread those to other people
so that they can also grow these cool plants.
So, I had to figure out a solution so that the birds can't get in here to eat but also
make in convenient for me to still harvest my tree collards when I want to eat them.
So, you know, I could go out and buy bird netting, but that would be an expensive having
to buy more stuff or I could get hang some CDs, some compact discs, on string and that
would kind of spin around and that could kind of scare the birds because that would be good
or you could take some like milar film like milar balloon, that material, but it up into
little strips and then tie them onto places and that may blow in the wind and scare the
bids and keep them away, and while those methods may work, it doesn't really protect your junk
in the trunk.
I like protecting my junk, especially if I'm playing sporting events, but anyways, we're
going to protect my tree collard seeds because they are important and they haven't even yet
developed.
They're still babies and they're getting eaten.
It makes me so sad.
So, let me next show you guys how I'm going to protect my tree collard seeds with a cool
item that actually I just happened to save.
So, now I'm going to show you guys how I'm going to protect my tree collard seeds from
getting eaten from the birds.
I've got these bags here.
So, what these bags are.
They're poly bag and actually I get coconuts in these.
I buy coconuts in bulk in the husk, and I guess these bags are very similar to the bags
you might bet a big bag of potatoes or a big bag of onions, you know, or a big bag of oranges
sometimes, but this is like the super huge gigantic size.
Usually the ones for potatoes or onions are bit smaller, and I don't know where else you'd
get these but I have these laying around because I really don't like throwing anything out
and that could be a thing, you know, if you're gardening and you're single like I am, but
it could be a bad thing if you're married, so good thing I got a good big garage and
maybe I'll even build a shed here to store some extra junk, but hey, one mans junk is
another mans treasure, and this today is a treasure because it's going to allow me to
save my perennial tree collard seeds form getting eating by the birds, and maybe another
solution would be to get a good cat.
Anyways, so, all we're going to do is take this big bag here, and as you can see there's
the opening, and this bag is so huge, it'll fit on me.
Stick 'em up I want all your vegetables.
So, we're going to take this bag and put all these stalks here that have the seeds growing,
if they have the leaves I'm not going to keep them in the bag 'cause I want to be able to
harvest those guys, and luckily most of the guys that have the seeds are to be segregated
out and I think they're right here.
So, we're going o take these guys on plant and we're going to bag it on up and to help
inside this little bag here I've got a bamboo stick to keep this straight.
Hopefully that's going to allow me to put this on a little bit easier so it doesn't
collapse on me, and we're just going to go ahead and stick this all the way in, just
like putting a bag over your junk when you're going to use it.
So, the last thing is we're going to go ahead and grab some string here.
We've just got some twine.
Just going to go ahead and roll off a bunch, just break it off, and we're going to go ahead
and tie off the bottom.
This is very important so that the wind doesn't blow this off and the bids won't be able to
actually get inside and then get up in there and have free reign.
So, we're just going to go ahead and pull this pretty taut.
That's a cool word, taut.
I was taught a lot of stuff in school, but I'm also able to pull this taut and tie it
off.
Bet you didn't know I was an English major.
Actually I wasn't an English major, so don't learn English form me, just learn gardening.
Alright, so we've got this taut here.
Just going to go ahead and put our string around and tie this guy off.
Alright, we're all tied off and check it out, this is now my protected tree collard seeds.
A couple are sticking out here.
They might be able to get to 'em, but that's alright.
The majority of them are going to be safe form the bids and I will be able to harvest
them for my uses instead of the birds eating them.
Another thing I was considering for, you know, mother nature and for the bids, because it's
really sad in this day and age that the birds have to come to my garden to eat my perennial
tree collards, I mean they are mineral dense mineral rich with trace minerals, probably
taste better than anything else they could find in this big city, 'cause there's not
a lot of nature that could feed the birds anymore, so I did consider, you know, maybe
getting a bird bath and actually a bird feeder to feed them and supply them with food but
then I don't want necessarily to encourage birds to come into my place because when that
runs out hey might come to my garden and eat and know that this is a valuable food source
for them.
So, I don't really want to encourage them to come so I decided to just wrap this up
and let them find some place else to go.
Another thing that may happen that has happened to me before is that in the heat of the summer
when I have nice juicy plump red tomatoes, the birds are going to come and peck at the
tomatoes.
Now, they're not necessarily pecking to eat the tomatoes.
They're pecking for the water.
Tomatoes are full of water, and that's why they're good for us, besides that they're
rich in other things like lipopine and other nutrients.
So, you know, at that point I may just have a bird bath to see if I could divert them,
you know, to go to the bird bath instead of pucking my tomatoes for the water, or I might
just se these bags once again to cover my tomato plant if they're small so that I can
eat my tomatoes and not the birds.
So, you know, the last thing I want to mention today is that there will always be creatures,
pests, whatever you want to call them, whether they're birds, alligators, lizards, moles,
boles, cats, dogs, rabbits, raccoons, anything, they're going to be coming at you to you're
garden to eat your stuff because you're providing them food, you're providing them gourmet food
that they can't get anywhere else.
Some of the best stuff, especially if you're using some of my growing practices including
a lot of organic matter, the compost and some of the trace minerals.
Man, the foods really going light them up like it lights you up when you're eating it.
So, but there's always a way to keep them out.
Just be persistent.
Just use your brain and think of creative ways you can use to, you know, keep them out.
I wouldn't normally have to go buy some, you now, bird cloth or whatever, and that costs
some money, but I had these guys laying around and I always love to find reuses for something's
that I have saved previously.
So, hopefully you guys have enjoyed this episode, you're a little bit more motivated now to,
you know, deter pests however you can.
Once again, my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
We'll see you next time, and remember, keep on growing.