Last year I planted an area with winter barley. It was fenced around and I thought that would help protect it from the pigs/chickens/other livestock/poultry
It didn't. The wild birds descended on the area. I'd raked the
seed into the dirt but they had no problem digging it up.
I did notice this spring that some of the seed did take and I had some nice stalks of barley. Not nearly enough, a dozen stalks out of all the seed I threw down. Depressing.
I left the stalks to mature and dry. I shouldn't have. The birds ate the seeds right out of the stalks.
So pretty much no barley made it. I have a lot more seed that I can plant but..how to protect it this time? Bird netting I suppose.
We have SO MANY birds on our property. My kids comment on this sometimes. We'll be at a lake or in a forest and they'll comment on how quiet it is. How there are birds about but the area isn't nearly as loud as our own acreage. It's true. I don't know what it is but we have birds. Droves of them and they are LOUD morning, noon and night.
I suppose a
permaculture blessing and proof I'm doing good work but boy oh boy we might have every bird in the county living on our property. lol