Frugal way to grow a garden with bird seed for temporary spaces
12.9 years ago birds, seed saving
Many people love bird watching. It is the favorite pastime of many gardeners too. For drawing the birds to the garden, you need to use the feeders. Instead of buying and storing the feeders every season, you can as well consider turning a special part of your garden exclusively for attracting birds. If the feeders are able to sprout, you can use them for growing the plants. Once the plants grow and mature, the birds can eat the seeds from the plants directly. Apart from that, you can pick the best seeds and store them away for the next season. If this interests you, here is how to grow bird seed.
1. Find a special spot
If you have a large garden, you can make use of the space effectively. Divide it into many parts. One special spot can be left for the birdseeds. The first thing to do is to find the best spot in your garden to attract the birds. The best thing is to consider an area away from your main garden. The birds will not disturb your garden and other useful items there.
2. Choose a good mixture of seeds
Choose a good mixture of seeds that can produce a wide variety of flowers. This can add a lot of color to the area and attract a lot of different types of birds. When the plants grow and produce different kinds of plants and flowers, various birds come to your garden automatically. In order to make the seeds grow well, you have to take the necessary steps.
3. Growing the plants
The soil should be well suited for growing the type of garden and plants you are looking for. First, begin with loosening the soil with a garden hoe. This will make it easy for planting the seeds. When the soil is ready, take a handful of seeds and scatter them on the loosened soil. Rake some topsoil over the scattered seeds. Sprinkle some water lightly over the topsoil to provide enough moisture for the sprouting.
4. Harvest the seeds
After the plants grow well, they start producing the seeds. Harvest these seeds at the end of the season. Store them properly in an airtight container. They can be used for feeding the birds during the winter season. Or, you can also leave them on the plants so that the birds eat them directly from the plants.
The best thing about these plants is that they will produce different kinds of colorful flowers before producing the seeds. So you will be able to enjoy different kinds of flowers and plants in your garden. At the same time, you can get a large amount of seeds for the next season. This is one of the best ways to produce healthy bird seeds in your own garden without spending money too often. Once you get used to the procedures, it will be easy to maintain the garden and follow the different procedures for taking care of the things. Choose an ideal location in your garden and spend some time with the birds daily. Children can also learn a lot of things from your garden.
About the author: Alia Haley is a blogger and writer. She loves writing on technology and luxury. Beside this she loves gardening in free time. She recently bought a book on Japanese Garden. These days she is busy in writing an article on patio umbrellas.
Blog for the not so beautiful things out there
16.5 years ago birds, potatoes, slugs
I see many blogs showing pictures of pretty flowers and cute little animals, when I was going on a nature hike today with my youngest daughter I came across some things that were interesting but not exactly beautiful which deserved some recognition.
If I saw this guy in my garden I probably wouldn’t be an inclined to stop and take his picture.
Uh, just a fly on a leaf…
Well potatoes are not that pretty so guess I wouldn’t expect the flowers to look much better
Tags: birds, cheap, vegetables
Attracting birds in your garden/yard
16.5 years ago birds
There are many benefits of having birds in your garden. The most obvious being the songs they sing in the morning and throughout the day. Now if you are not a morning person this may be a negative, but there are definitely more obtrusive ways to be woken up.
Birds can directly help your garden by eating weed seeds they find throughout your lawn and garden. Like singing, this can be a blessing and a frustration due to the fact they have not learned the difference between those peas you carefully planted and the weed seeds that you really want them to be consuming. Given that I take care of my weeds organically I can definitely appreciate the help of the birds.
Birds also like to snack on insects, like seeds the birds are not indifferent to the pests and the beneficial insects, so they may gobble up some of your spiders, ants, beetles, and worms (ok not an insect) but they are also are nice enough to eat aphids, grubs, Japanese beetles. Some birds such as swallows can eat 100s of bugs in a morning snack.
If you have decided that you want to attract more birds to your garden, what are your options? Like most creatures they have three simple necessities: food, water, and shelter.
Food: Feeding your birds is pretty easy, above I mentioned some of the benefits of the insects and weed seeds that your birds can feast from. There is the obvious bird feeder and given the seeds/food you choose can help determine the species birds you will have visiting. For example most songbirds prefer black oil sunflower seeds, while white millet is preferred by most ground feeding birds. Now of course the more food your birds are eating from your feeders the less pests and weed seeds they are eating from your lawn and garden, but the feeder should attract more birds to your lawn/garden so best to keep those feeders full.
Water: Birds need water to drink but also bathe in, now you can invest in something aesthetically pleasing like this one (click below):
If you are on a budget you can always make your own, basic requirements is needs to be less than 3 inches deep and have a comfortable surface for the birds to perch on. Some ideas are metal garbage can lid, circular planter, or even larger pot drip pan. Simply place on the ground of on top of some shrubbery, rough up the bottom of the surface with some steel wool and water. You will want to clean your bird bath about once a week with a diluted bleach solution (3/4 cup bleach to 1 gal water) since unfortunately the birds may use their bath occasionally as a bathroom.
Shelter: Shelters give animals a place to nest and/or hide from predators. Now there are two types of shelters natural and man-made. If you have some well established trees and/or shrubbery you probably have some birds already living with (whether you know it or not) Like many people I live in a relatively new development (< 5 years old) so most of the trees in my neighborhood are still developing so I opted to supplement with an man-made solution, the classic birdhouse. I couldn’t find the instructions I actually used but here are some free instructions to create a similar birdhouse from a single cedar fence picket. Not sure if you can tell from the picture but everything did not line up exactly as it should but it should keep some birds dry and safe and the girls had a great time “decorating” it.
Whether you just want to attract more birds to hear singing in your backyard or you want to put them to work getting rid of pests and weeds in your lawn and garden doing the steps above should give you plenty of both.
Tags: birds, cheap, garden seeds, organic vegetables, outdoor plants, vegetables, worms
