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Be gone pests

Every year I plant purple sprouting broccoli and every winter whilst it's far too cold for me to be heading off to the allotment, great big fat pigeons eat it. I finally brave the bitter wind and try to net the plants with the shabby bits of net I've got and they sit on top of the net, which has usually collapsed under the weight of snow and eat the sprouts of broccoli again. Eventually I get the whole net thing sorted on a warm spring day and the sun causes the plants to go to seed.

I have long been envious of all the fabulously sophisticated looking brassica protection that are pride of place on other plots at the allotment. Beautiful structures filled with perfect cabbages and untouched plants. I have dreamt of my own steel and net weapon against the greed of those birds.
And now at last I have my own fruit cage to love and I have such plans for it. From now until late spring it will keep the pesky pigeons off the purple sprouting broccoli, as they can strip a plant of any life in a matter of days. Around about the time the plants flower, berries will be appearing on my fruit bushes and I can move the cage to cover them. This year every single black currant, gooseberry and red currant was stolen within less than a week. One moment they were there, ripe and ready to pick and the next they were gone.

Just try it now pigeons!

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