Gardeners’ World expert reveals one thing you can plant to stop pigeons ‘ruining’ veg
Spring is just around the corner, and it’s time to venture out into the garden and plant some vegetables. However, it’s also the season for various pests, such as slugs, pigeons and rabbits, to invade and feast on your veggies.
Frances Tophill, a star of Gardeners’ World, suggests that the solution to safeguarding your vegetables from pests is to introduce a few “companion” plants alongside them, which will ward off unwanted visitors.
On the Gardeners’ World Podcast, Frances cautioned that gardeners must take measures to shield salad plants and other leafy vegetables, or pigeons and rabbits will simply “walk up to it and eat it”.
Frances elaborates: “You can just plant anything around the edges of that, maybe a little hedge of lavender or something. And that should keep them from even seeing those crops behind.”
The lavender will at least “distract” pests, according to Frances: “I also just stick to flowers. So I plant lots of flowering plants around the vegetables to bring the pollinators in, to distract the slugs and things like that.”
She further notes that cultivating your own vegetables is far from straightforward: “People start with veg – but veg is the hardest thing to grow.”
Carrots, for instance, are notoriously difficult to grow, and Frances suggests that planting beetroot alongside them can make a gardener’s task much simpler: “A friend of mine… after I sowed my carrots this year… told me about companions with beetroot.
“Beetroot germinates a little bit quicker in colder conditions than carrots. So what you can do is, you can sow your carrots and then put a fleece over the top to keep the ground warm that they germinate.
“And at the end of each row, outside the fleece, you sow some beetroots. Once the beetroots have come up, you’ll know whether your carrots have come up or not.”
Despite the challenges, carrots are generally a good choice for UK gardeners as they thrive in cooler temperatures. The optimal time to plant them in the UK is from mid-April to early July.
While some gardeners may start their carrots under cover, planting them directly in your vegetable patch will yield better-shaped, straighter vegetables. Protect them from any late frosts with a piece of gardener’s fleece.
To ensure a steady supply of vegetables throughout the autumn months, plant a batch of carrots every two or three weeks. The final sowing should be in early to mid-summer for maincrop varieties that store well over winter.
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