Hello!

[Patsy]

I have a small cottage garden stuffed with flowers, herbs, wildflowers, trees and birdfeeders.

I also have an allotment where I grow fruit and vegetables. The fruit is starting to take over a bit. I have strawberries (4 varieties) raspberries, black and red currants, rhubarb, brambles and goji berries. The vegetables I most like to grow are tomatoes as they taste so much better than shop ones (I have 28 plants) and things that aren't so easy to buy such as methi and seakale or which are stupidly expensive such as baby salad leaves.

 

[Ian]

Hi Patsy, welcome to the forums . Sounds like you've got quite the selection of things on the go at the moment .

 

[Patsy]

Thanks, Ian. I certainly have!

(Are you the same Ian who invited me here via the RHS forum? I'm Phot's Moll over there. You might not remember doing it as it was months ago and I've only just got round to joining here)

 

[Ian]

(Are you the same Ian who invited me here via the RHS forum? I'm Phot's Moll over there. You might not remember doing it as it was months ago and I've only just got round to joining here)

Ah hello! Yes, that would be me - good to see you over here!

 

[Patsy]

Well us redheads have to stick together ...

 

[Becky]

Welcome to the forums Patsy, great to have you here! What a great selection of fruit and veg! I've only ever had dried goji berries before, what are the fresh ones like?

 

[zigs]

Welcome to Gardening Forums

I used to have Red hair too

 

[Patsy]

Becky, I've not had my plant long enough to find out! It was a gift and apparently it takes a couple of years before they fruit. I might be lucky this summer.

Thanks, Zigs. I used to be blonde but the other blondes asked me to change it as I was giving them a bad name.

 

[Babble64]

Welcome Patsy! You are one busy gardener! Of course my eyes picked up "birdfeeders. I'm a back yard birder as well....it's one of my favorite things! What types of birds do you get? (I'm in NE US)

 

[Patsy]

Hi Babble,
I'm in the UK. Regular garden visitors are starlings, blue tits, coal tits, great tits, long tailed tits, blackbirds, pigeons, doves, robins and magpies. Less common are jays, sparrows, gulls, wrens, woodpeckers, waxwings and fieldfares.

 

[scotkat]

Hello Patsy and welcome I am new to just joined here today .

I am having a restful day now as rain is about to burst down on us and yesterday I was so busy in the restoration walled garden project of Glamsi Castle where I volunteer.

 

[Babble64]

Hi Babble,
I'm in the UK. Regular garden visitors are starlings, blue tits, coal tits, great tits, long tailed tits, blackbirds, pigeons, doves, robins and magpies. Less common are jays, sparrows, gulls, wrens, woodpeckers, waxwings and fieldfares.

Of those we get the starlings (I've read that some well meaning person imported them from the UK. No insult to you, but they have become a pest here. We currently have several families of babies and they wipe us out of seed in short order!), mourning doves, robins, blue jays, and house wrens. The cedar waxwings will be around shortly. We also have ruby-throated hummingbirds (the only type of hb that lives in this part of the country), black capped chickadees, red-winged blackbirds, grackles, cardinals, rose breasted grosbeaks, a variety of sparrows. Today I noticed some type of bug catching bird feasting in the back yard as well. I haven't identified him yet.

And now...I need to look up some of your common birds...because I don't know them!

 

[Patsy]

I hadn't heard that - about someone importing starlings from the UK to USA. We do get a lot of them but I like them - they eat leatherjackets. They don't go on the bird table much, although they do scoff all our fat blocks.

I've heard of most of the birds you mention although wouldn't recognise them if they landed on my birdtable!

 

[Babble64]

I hadn't heard that - about someone importing starlings from the UK to USA. We do get a lot of them but I like them - they eat leatherjackets. They don't go on the bird table much, although they do scoff all our fat blocks.

I've heard of most of the birds you mention although wouldn't recognise them if they landed on my birdtable!

The starlings devour our suet (our word for fat blocks) too. They also eat grubs from our yard...and I'd be perfectly happy if they kept to that! Thankfully there are few bigger birds which are higher on the pecking order (the blue jays and red bellied woodpeckers) so we do also get some other birds at the suet. Occasionally we even get a pileated woodpecker...that's the MOST fun! And I wouldn't know a tit if I saw one....I don't even think we have them in the US except in the NW.