Sunseed News
Gardens: Gardens vs Wild Boars
A little while ago, on a chilly Wednesday morning, we ventured down to the (not-so-)New Land to work on the polytunnel. Looking over the area, something seemed amiss. The beds looked in disarray. The boars had gatecrashed our gardens once again.
That realisation makes for an awful feeling; your stomach drops in disbelief, anger and sadness. So many hours of hard work and care destroyed in a night of rampant worm-hunting by our furry neighbours. The amount of rooting and digging is impressive, they are uncontrollable rotovating machines.
A second (and surprising) feeling hit me. That of relief. And I realised it was because we are not wholly dependent on our garden produce. As an educational project, we grow to teach as well as feeding the community. But not being totally self-sufficient, we supplement with local food.
For our neighbour, Jackie, who has an organic farm nearby, the situation is different. It is her livelihood. Her land was also heavily damaged recently and therefore her veg boxes were unusually sparse. I can only begin to imagine how horrific this must have felt.
For now we are re-ordering and re-planting. Whilst we do have decent anti pig fences, there are additional areas which need to be patched. Boars seem to dislike chard and calendular so perhaps it would be safer to monocrop these instead!
The boar wars continue…
Before:
After:
