BEAT BIRDS AND WASPS TO YOUR FALLEN FRUIT

Ripe apples and pears are dropping from my fruit trees onto the soft mattress of grasses and herbs, and unless I pick them up and bring them inside, they’ll become bird food or dessert for wasps. Some already have, though all is not lost. If I get to them soon enough, I cut off the pecked and chewed bits and stew them up to go on top of my breakfast oatmeal or muesli. If left lying, sugary fruits can attract wasps and they’re no fun to stumble upon or wrap a fruitcollecting hand around unwittingly. Fortunately, there has been no sign at all of wasps in my garden this year, despite the fullness of my fruit harvest. In other years, they have been a disincentive to walking barefoot beneath the fruit trees. The presence of birds, particularly blackbirds and bellbirds, doesn’t force me to keep my shoes on but can make me grumpy

if they’ve been helping themselves to

too many apples and pears. quick smart! If you leave them lying on the ground, you might find your crop will be stolen by rodents from under your feet. These small mammals have sharp, chisel-shaped teeth that make short work of hazelnut shells and the wearer of those teeth won’t stop at just one nut. I visited a copse of hazels just recently where the gardeners – who for years have collected sound hazelnuts from beneath trees at their leisure – are tearing their hair out at the sight of hundreds of gnawed nuts on the ground. I expect that when the chestnuts still hanging on the trees nearby, fall, the same gnawing fate will befall them. The best action to take to beat the rats, will be to shake the un-nibbled nuts from the tree, knock them off with a stick if they won’t dislodge, and collect them straight away. Left to lie on the ground overnight, these nuts will be