Saturday, October 29, 2022

Blogtober - Day Twenty Nine

What a nuisance. One of the badgers has been digging again.  Last time it was one of the potatoes this time it was the blueberry plant.  We only have one.  We bought it from a supermarket, well rescued it as it looked worse for wear and had been reduced in price.

 I do love to see the badgers when we capture them on the trail camera.  A couple of weeks ago we saw four of them two the usual badger colour and two pale grey ones.  We've only seen one large pale grey badger before and she's been around for a few years and we call her Mrs Bustle as she does bustle around the garden and keep the others in order.  Now we have two pale badgers both female. First time they have been seen together.

These are camera stills from a couple of years ago.

Anyway, back to the blueberry. It has fruited for a few years and produces just a handful of berries.  It has got a bit bigger but not much but it does come back each year.  It was teased out of the soil, trimmed back and placed in a pot which has now been put in the greenhouse.

I hope it survives.

20 comments:

  1. Badgers! I have never seen one. I would be frustrated too if they were digging in my gardens. Here, the deer are such a nuisance. There are far too many of them. When I moved here it was rare to see a deer, now they are everywhere and are losing their fear of humans.

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    1. The badgers make more of a mess than the foxes.Although we live in an urban area there are many green spaces around us where the animals live. I can't imagine what it is like to have deer in the garden, I expect they will graze the tree line as well as tramping down the earth and plants in your garden:)

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  2. Sadly the only Badgers I've seen is when they've been hit and killed on the main road.
    The one time I tried a Blueberry bush it got smaller each year rather than bigger!

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    1. I lived in the country as a child and never saw a badger. We had stuffed ones in the museum I worked in and I also saw them squished on the road side, never a live one until we came here. They seem to have appeared in the last ten years. I don't think the blueberry was destined to get much bigger, it was probably two or three inches taller than when we bought it but not much wider:)

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  3. Oh bother, fingers crossed it will perk up, nice to see the badgers though. There's a blueberry farm somewhere in Scotland that aren't picking their millions of blueberries this year, they are all going to waste apart from a few going to charity. It's just not cost effective any more. How awful is that after all the hard work building the farm up. 😊

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    1. What a shame about the blueberries going to waste in Scotland. I try to buy British ones when they are in season as I love them sprinkled on cereal for breakfast or with a blueberry yoghurt. That's dreaful news about the farm:)

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  4. You have interesting wildlife coming into your garden and you see them on your night time special camera. It's a pity that they're digging up plants though. I hope your blueberry plant survives. In our Italian garden our granddaughter when on holiday reported seeing porcupines peeping over the wall. They didn't venture into the garden. Apparently they throw their spines when disturbed. There were no sightings when our son was staying in the house this year thank goodness. Do have a lovely weekend.

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    1. How amazing to porcupines peeping over the garden wall. so different to our wildlife here. I wonder if they sense humans are in the house and garden so don't come further or if they enter the garden when the house is empty? I hope the blueberry survives too:)

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  5. I am so envious of your badgers Rosie! :) Lovely photo. I know they can be a pain with their digging though and I hope your blueberry plant survives. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

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    1. We didn't see them for ages although suspected there were some around. Our neighbour first spotted them on her front lawn when her dog was making such a fuss at their window. Fingers crossed for the blueberry. Have a lovely Sunday:)

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  6. Loved seeing your badger & hope they don't dig up too much. Now, for a little tip with your blueberry......if you can procure another of a different variety so the bees can cross pollinate, they do really well. We net them as soon as we see berries forming, though if we ever get around to building a proper cage, it would probably be better. The blackbirds love them, so they need protection. We picked 32kgs one year, but they are old bushes which were here when we moved in & thought to have been planted about 2003. OK, that was a bit long winded. Take care & hugs.

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    1. Thank you Susan, they usually like root vegetables so I don't know why they went for the blueberry. Great information about how you look after your blueberry plants, if this one survives we may get another although I don't know which variety this one is, perhaps two more of a different variety would help the first one. We did well for strawberries and rhubarb this year but not many plums.no gooseberries and only a few blueberries. Take care:)

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  7. No badgers here but the blackbirds eat all our blueberries unless we net them. Last year rats ate all the tulips from our pots. B x

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    1. The blackbirds here love the berries on the Amelanchier tree, I love to watch them. They don't seem to have found the blueberry plant we didn't put netting up this year so perhaps they took a few. It never produced many berries. It's squirrels here that dig up Spring bulbs like tulips and crocus, they love crocus:)

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  8. I have never seen a badger in the real! It must be so exciting to capture them on camera in your garden. I was going to mention about the blueberries and see that someone else has commented. If you only have one blueberry bush the yield will be low but if you have more than one variety they cross pollinate and produce bigger and better berries! x

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    1. Thank you Simone. It's only in the last five years or so that I've seen a live badger, I'm glad they visit the garden. I think we need to get a couple of other blue berries of different varieties as I've no idea what variety the one we have is:)

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  9. I hope it survives too and if it doesn't it won't be because you didn't try.

    Good photos of the badgers - I've never seen them in the wild before, but because my husband is from Wisconsin, he certainly has.

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    1. Thank you Kim, I do like having the badgers visit but we never know which plants they will try to dig up next:)

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