For the Birds... (or so they think!)

In the long, sad history of scarecrows we have known, one fact becomes very clear very quickly:  crows don't scare too easily.  And that's just your garden variety crow; by the time you move on to other rapacious species, such as thrushes, and grackles, and pigeons, oh my!  We feel certain that had Harper Lee been a corn farmer, she would have written "To Kill a Flamingo" instead of "To Kill a Mockingbird".

No, scarecrows don't work.  What does work, however, if you want to keep your avian friends from reaping what you sow, is trap crops, and around here, the best trap crop is sunflowers.  We have planted a wide variety of sunflowers this year, in the belief that at least some of these different species will surely yield big bulging disks of seeds that the birdies will flock to instead of to our precious corn crop.  And judging from the first few flowers to bloom, we've done well this season.

No sign of birds pecking the seeds out yet, but it's really just a matter of time.  And just in time, too, because the corn is ripening quickly.  This Spring's corn crop is a variety called "Kandy Korn", and we'll know it's ripe when its tassels get so long and pink it looks like Cousin It trying out for a Flock of Seagulls cover band.

We are always fascinated by the reactions we get from the neighbors when we have a large corn crop in the ground.  This is the crop people think of when they think about a vegetable garden, but it is not really all that common a non-professional crop.  Corn is a space hog, for one thing.  Also, it takes a lot of water; in a year like this one, where we are three full inches behind our average rainfall totals, that can be a critical problem.

And then there are the aforementioned birds.  What they don't eat, they knock over.  It's enough to make a backyard farmer batty.  But don't fret; just plant some flowers!

They're pretty, some are tasty, and most of all... They're for the birds!

Happy farming!