Mike Lafay

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Mike,
Do you know what kind of birds are causing the damage? The methods for small song birds would of course be different than say, Canadian geese :)

The solutions that I can think of off hand would be to increase the predators in the area and planting way more than they can eat/damage.

For smaller areas, I wonder if you could use some sort of net made from natural materials for short periods of time when the damage might be the most... just after transplanting or just before things get ripe?

Well, the good side of having a "small" urban garden is that there are no dragon-sized bird attacking my beds.

Basically, the birds are the size of common blackbirds for the digging types, and house sparrow for those attacking and eating my grain (which I forgot to talk about in the OP).

I have about 400 square feet of garden if we look at a map, of course in reality it's smaller; so I can't really put that much more plants. What kind of predators could be increased ?

I use nets to protect the grain, however for beds digging it's the first year I notice this behavior.

Anne Miller wrote:Since you mentioned permaculture design, I thought I would mention things that can be done that are functional as well as pretty.

There are voile bags with a drawstring that can be put over the individual fruit.

Have you tried wind chimes? Lots of them?

What about some flags or wind socks?  Lots of them?

How about some decoys?  Maybe an owl or two?

I am looking forward to all the other suggestions.

Of course, if the protection can have several use, it would be wonderful. Wind chimes could be an idea, it's the first time I'm hearing about this. I am not sure if it would scare the birds though but it could be worth a try.

I've read about fake owls, I could try.

So far, there seems to be less damage, thanks to the jute fabric. But it's not really scalable (or at least, if I can find something else that mean being able to have bigger mulch I'm all for it), and the advantage of jute is also its downside: it's biodegradable, so I won't be eating plastic bits, but I'll have to periodically replace them.

Hello permies,

I am finally doing a design of my garden, after several years of experimenting things here and there.

I noticed this year that I had damages from birds. Sometimes, I had plants that were literally unrooted, and of course if I didn't catch it immediately they would die in the sun.

I also added mulch to some beds and containers, only to have birds suddenly go in there and dig up everything, unrooting plants and just destroying everything.

So far, I have added some jute fabric with holes in it for the plants in container, and a bird net above the mulched growing bed. However, I want to know as many way possible, that do work, to keep bird damages to a minimum, especially since I will also have small fruits like raspberries at some point, and I don't plan on feeding the local wildlife who already take more than his share from the garden. I tried hanging CD, but the birds don't care. So far, only physical barrier seem to be working, but I am open to any solution, especially ones that don't involve having hideous plastic nets all over the place.

What would be a permaculture way of preventing birds damage ?

Seeing how the fruit looks like it has a little scorpion tail on the bottom, I think that would be it, thanks for the confirmation.

As a Jalapeno pepper is already hot for me, be sure that I'll try a tiny, tiny bit of that Carolina Reaper.

If you have any tips on actually using very hot peppers, I'm all ears, although I'll probably do some research on my own. I might dilute them a lot, in order to actually eat them at some point.

I will also dry them for storage, however would using an electric dehydrator with a fan be a bad idea ? I don't want to make my kitchen a no man's land; all I am sure off is that actually cooking them can be dangerous with the capsaicin being volatile. I saw a video which had me burst out laughing about the hottest curry in the world, where the cooks literally need gas masks to cook that curry.

Hello permies.

As a mature, reasonable adult, I decided last year to try a few hot peppers. I had a few Pimiento de Padron, as well as a few Jalapeno. I had a few seeds too of Habanero, and of the dreaded Carolina Reaper. Since there was basically no summer last year, I had no fruit on those later peppers; and so I decided to dig them, put them in pots and overwinter them inside. This is where I have a problem.

As you all know, one of the biggest lie in life we tell ourselves is, "of course I'm going to remember what I planted there". So, all I am sure of is that I dug up either Habanero or Carolina reaper.

This year, I decided to plant peppers but gradually increasing their strength, in the hope of improving my own capsaicin tolerance, something we all strive to do at some point in life. So I have planted Shishitu (barely a pepper), Purple Delight, Variegata, and Habanero Chocolate brown. So I have a few visual comparison available.

This is the plant I am wondering about: what variety do you think it is, between Habanero and Carolina Reaper ?

Fruits:

Better view of the leaves:


For reference, here is a plant I know is an Habanero (chocolate brown variety, whereas the Habanero from last year was just "Habanero", so it is possible that there are some difference between Chocolate Brown Habanero and "just" Habanero (with some Plenitude K432 grain amaranth that decided to photo bomb):



What are your thoughts ?

Yes, I can see it now. Thanks !

Okay, so I've been able to buy the podcast through the gumroad link, and it has been about 48h. It seems that I have not been added to the private forum. Can anyone do that please ? I've listened to the 3h podcast, I want to try to contribute some positive stuff.

I have also started eating kale again, and it seemed relevant to point that out.

Well, thanks a lot to you and your team for setting this up !

I will wait a few day until I get my pay (25$ was OK this month, 40$ won't fit). After that, I'll gladly use that link; maybe you'll want to add it to the original post if it is available for people in other countries. I can't be the only non-US guy who want to support you in some way and possibly contribute in other ways.

You are just sharing so much stuff, at some point I want to give something back or at least try. I can't fly over to Montana (if that's even where the permies HQ is located) to help physically in any way, so perhaps I'll be able to share interesting new stuff in that private forum. Hopefully, without coming on as the clueless guy who read a book that just happen to be exactly the opposite of what you are doing. I am quite good at cooking, working out and self-discipline o maybe that could be good subjects to exchange on.

In the meantime, thanks you for everything you do.

Hello,

I've just learned about the cancer, and with all that Paul has done, and is making freely available, I would love to both be able to contribute financially, and share what I know will or might helps, as well as do it consciously: if he's doing A, I can't just tell him to do B for instance.

However, I live in France, and so it seems that the VAT mafia requires the payment of the VAT horse shit contribution.

Beside getting through the paywall from a gift, is there any other way to do so ? I don't mind paying 25 + the 20% or so of this included.

The few times I had muscle cramps, I was not eating a lot of veggies. If he's fit and eating a lot of proteins, he should make sure to also eat a lot of veggies. They will gives a lot of good things, not just the magnesium, or iron, or whatever everyone here is suggesting (I'm not implying that magnesium or individual supplement won't work; but vegetables will gives a wide variety of nutrients, which will be more easily available to the body; so instead of trying each nutrient one by one, having a load of them at once might give faster results).

It's not really a medicinal herb in itself, but let food be thy medicine ! If you can solve it at the root, that would be the best. Do he also stretch enough ? When do these cramps happen ?