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Pigeons and brassicas

Updated: Apr 19, 2022

Learning how to grow large, healthy fresh brassicas in a small urban garden, while keeping pest and birds away.

This year was our first time growing brassicas and we were definitely excited to see how successful they might be. We had been growing our broccoli and cauliflower seedlings indoors near the large bright garden glass doors, until they were big and strong enough to plant into the garden.


Feeling good after bed prepping, we popped the small plants outside, still in their containers for a few days before planting in place to make sure I was fully happy with my chosen location.


It didn't take long for me to notice how quickly my baby plants were being munched! It was really sad, because we had no idea what was eating them so fast and guessed, it must have been slugs in the night.

Well, well, well......I got all my answers soon enough, while sitting at my desk very early one morning, movement caught my attention out the corner of my eye, and I glanced into the garden. There I saw our friendly garden pigeon walking calmy and confidently over to my baby plants. I was in such shock when I watched it start pecking at them! All this time I though the slugs were eating my brassicas and it was the pigeons.


These annoying pigeons are smart, I noticed they would make their move in the early hours of the day, and they would move fast. That day after I planted the brassicas out in the beds, sprinkled around the plants with eggshells (I'd heard that slugs won't crawl over sharp loose surfaces, and guessed crushed egg shells might be a good choice). We then covered the plants with a light netting, which was still able to let in rain and sunlight, but hopefully protect them from the pigeon attacks.


🌱 Handy tip:

Pigeons love to eat broccoli, sprouts, cabbages and cauliflower - keep them covered.

Once the plants were covered, they grew very quickly into large healthy plants, an important point to highlight is while we were bed prepping, we incorporated large amounts of compost into the beds, which allowed the broccolis to have access to plenty of nutrients to help them grow well. Seeing my own broccoli growing in my small back garden is such a rewarding experience!

And remember not to waste any of the plants, all the stalk and leaves are edible too in a range of cooked and raw dishes - salads, stir fries and stews are my favourite

Thanks for reading, if this interested you make sure to share with others who are growing vegetables from home, and would love to know your experiences, tips and stories too 🌱

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