I won the battle, bring on the war!

Since I beefed up the anti-sparrow measures in the front garden the sparrow family seem to have disappeared (fingers crossed) I'm still a bit concerned though as the Borlotti beans have gone crazy and are now towering above the netting stretched around the bottom of the bean frame. The largest bean whose main growth shoot was broken off has surprised me by sending up another shoot which has taken over where the other one left off. All this means that there are now lots of tender, tasty shoots looking all naked and vulnerable around the bean frame. I'm just hoping the sparrows don't make an opportunistic raid and spot them, I'm sure they'd move back in like a shot if the food supply resumed.

The butternut squash is also doing well. I've done a little research on how I can expect the plant to grow and I'm reasonably confident that it can trail across the lawn where it will plenty of room. My plan is to feed it diligently as I'm a tad concerned about the small amount of ground it's growing in.

I've spent this morning thinning out my radish and coriander seedlings. I feel horribly guilty about ripping these tiny lives out of the ground and condemning them to a premature death (not sure I'm emotionally robust enough for this gardening lark) so I do my best to make use of them. The radish seedlings were donated to the chickens who wolfed them down in seconds (no tussling with finer feelings there) and the coriander seedlings have been saved to be used in the same way as grown up coriander.

Am I allowed to swear on this blog?

Because those sparrows are driving me to it! OK, so I've netted the chard, what do they do? Perch on the edge of the barrel, push the netting til it touches the plants then stick their beaks through the net and carry on eating! I put up jingly, sparkly strings of bottle tops, what do they do? Sit between the strings admiring my handiwork. They've reduced my borlotti beans to shreds, dug up seeds, poo on the pea shoots and - the final insult - built nests in our guttering which we've now got to get rid of.

I've swathed the bean support with netting to try and keep them off the beans and prevent them digging up the 3 surviving bean seedlings. That's an entire 10m roll of garden netting I've got through and I may even need some more! It's a tad depressing as I bought a nice willow bean support for the front so that it would look nicer than the average veg patch but it's not exactly a thing of beauty anymore, buried under miles of green plastic.

Still, gritted teeth, learning curve etc etc, next season I'll net everything from the start. What's my mantra? "I'm not a keen gardener, I'm a keen eater" repeat, repeat, repeat .....

And there they were - gone

I've now accepted the inevitable and binned the courgettes. I'm pretty sure it's mosaic virus they've got. The symptoms are yellow, withered leaves and stunted growth. Although my courgettes weren't withered they were very yellow and growing very slowly. According to Google fruit from infected plants doesn't make good eating so I've cut my losses.

Apparently I now can't plant the infected spot with courgettes for a year which is a shame. If our allotment plan comes together we should be ok though as we can plant courgettes there next spring. I've also washed my tools in hot, soapy water to kill any virus hanging around on them.

Rachel has very kindly stepped into the breach and offered me one of her courgette plants, I'm going to plant it in a bag of compost and sit it on top of the infected soil so the plant isn't growing directly in it. I've replaced my potted courgette with more strawberry plants and hopefully there will also be borlotti and french bean seedlings to throw into the mix.

Sadly, my troubles don't end there. My healthy borlotti bean in the front garden has suffered an injury of some sort and it's growing shoot has broken off so it won't grow any taller. The seeds I planted aren't showing any signs of coming up. Personally, I suspect the portly sparrow perched on the chard tubs has got something to do with that, my evidence being the holes in the ground where the seeds used to be. When I finally plant out the bean seedlings from the back garden, I'm going to have to construct yet more netting swathed structures around the place. Sigh.

The sparrows have joined in now .....

I've already written about the blackbird who's tormenting me, it now turns out that those cute little sparrows I'd been watching play in the hedge have joined in. They've found a hole in the netting around the chard and have been casually hopping in and out with beaks loaded with young chard leaves.

Aren't sparrows supposed to be rare these days? I guess I should be flattered they've taken up residence in our hedge but that won't stop me putting up new netting later on today.

Edit: Caught him! At last, a photo of one of the hedge sparrow family perched on top of the wig wam in the front garden. I'm hoping to catch the blackbird on camera too.