Don't Boil Your Nectar... Just Shake It with a Sugar Shaker Nectar Maker.

Clean your wild bird feeders

The Compost Bin

Compost isn't "exciting" but then again if you have time to wait it's also "free". If we add in the word "necessary" for your garden then it's probably a no brainer for you to create some type of compost pile.

Where can you get a new compost bin? Well You can buy prebuilt composters, or you can make one yourself. Finally you could just throw your grass clippings, leaves, egg shells, banana peals, and expired veggies on the ground. All that organic material on the ground would eventually compost. It just won't be as fast as with a real compost bin.

Most compost bins have a way to aerate all six side (top, bottom, & the 4 sides) of the structure. All bins need to have a way to allow water to enter. Some but not all have a way to rotate the decaying matter that will ultimately become the compost. 

Those three items are all you really need for compost: 1)Various Organic Matter, 2)Water, and 3) Rotation of the Material.

What brought about this blog post today is I'm in repair mode of  my home built compost bin. You can see by the picture below while doing the repair I removed a giant mound of compost. 

The cause of my repair was the base. Although these 2x4 pressure treated base boards seen below were once very sturdy some of then have turned into compost as well. This caused half of base to collapse. Given that I need air circulation on the bottom to make compost I needed to make the repair. 

My home built compost bin does not rotate which means every few weeks, typically after it rains I go and stir up the contents. Not ideal but it works. I created a big front door. This allows me to take a shovel and rotate the contents.

My bin is pretty simple. It is a 4"x4"x4" structure. All of it was made with pressure treated wood but as pic#2 shows that only last so long. I basically built it with with four main 4"x4" posts. I then took 4 premade pickets sections (typically used on decks) and screwed them in the posts. The door is also a picket section on hinges. 

Keeping the compost inside the unit I used plastic chicken wire lined on the inside of the wooden pickets. This roll of product was used single ply on the sides and I double-plied it on the bottom. After 15years most of it is still in good shape. Even though the bottom boards rotted out the plastic chicken wire looked really good. Up until the point I ripped it out to get at the boards. The chicken wire on the sides is in good shape.

I'll relevel the whole unit. It's a little tilted right now causing the gate not to latch properly. For the base this time I'll use composite wood with plastic chicken wire on top. I'll also place a small piece of 4mil black plastic rap between the composite beam holding structure and the pressure treated pickets. This will keep the support board of the pickets drier and allow them to last another 15 years.

Some of the compost in the big pile I will throw back into the refurbished bin. This will help jump start the new compost. I will take the rest  and use it for a planting bed next year. 

Composting isn't exciting but then again it doesn't take much time either. Why pay your local garbage man to pick up items in your lawn that could be composted for free?

Here's another way to look at it... Why pay to have grass clipping, leaves, old potted plants, wood chips, etc hauled off to the landfill? You're probably paying that local garbage man to pick up your composted material - so he can then sell it to a company like Scotts - so they can make compost - that you then buy at Lowe's or Home Depot.  

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David Peterson is the owner of the Best Nest of Georgia, Inc. which includes in its corporate family a retail store called the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek Georgia. The Wild Bird Center focuses on bringing nature to your backyard using bird seed, bird feeders, mealworms, and bird houses to attract wild birds to your yard. You can reach the Wild Bird Center at 770-418-1990 or by contacting David via email: david@thebestnest.net

Stop the Mess - Install Seed Catchers

Feeding and enjoying the wild birds in your backyard is supposed to be fun and relaxing. However it can become a chore to clean beneath the feeders. 

On the ground seed husks collect along with discarded bird seed. You may have noticed our feathered friends pick through the seed for their favorite morsel. Some of the seed is actually meant to be chucked to the ground by the songbirds for the ground birds to eat. These include gains like millet and corn. If you let this pile of seeds and husks collect too long you'll have a mess that must be cleaned up to prevent diseases. 

There are two easy fixes to avoid cleaning up the mess. These are:

1) Use a no-mess seed like the PatioWise we sell here at the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek. This product only uses delicious seed with no hulls. Basically, everything gets eaten, even if it gets thrown to the ground!

2) Another simple solution is to add a seed tray, or seed catcher like the two shown below. Notice in the picture there are two small plates attached to the feeders. These catch all the seed before it hits the ground. You can simply tip the plate to collect the seed in the plate and put it back in the feeder!

Seed trays come in many different shapes and sizes. We have some in the store over 22" in length. There are large round ones and square ones. There are hanging trays that attached with hooks to your feeders and ones that mount to your shepherd's hooks. In other words there is probably one for you. 

So don't despair, let nature relax you while keeping your ground under the feeders clean. Buy a seed catcher and stop doing a least this one little chore.

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David Peterson is the owner of the Best Nest of Georgia, Inc. which includes in its corporate family a retail store called the Wild Bird Center of Johns Creek Georgia. The Wild Bird Center focuses on bringing nature to your backyard using bird seed, bird feeders, mealworms, and bird houses to attract wild birds to your yard. You can reach the Wild Bird Center at 770-418-1990 or by contacting David via email: david@thebestnest.net

Habits of Eastern and Western Monarch Butterflies

I found this article in phys.org. Interesting mating habits and possible ways to save the western monarch which is currently in steep decline.

Interesting article on habits of Western and Eastern Monarch Butterflies.https://t.co/BHMHwtKEuD

— The Best Nest of GA (@TheBestNest_GA) August 3, 2020

Nectar Guard Tips

Here's a real quick Pro Tip:

If you have bees around your hummingbird feeder, or worse bees and flies floating in your nectar there is an easy fix for this. At least with the line of Aspect Hummingbird Feeders.

I like the window feeder pictured below. However as soon as I put it up I found flies floating in the nectar. I know what the issue is... the holes for the Aspect Jewel Box feeder are too big thus flies and bees can get to the nectar. Luckily Aspects created a product to solve this problem.

The product is a set of Nectar Guard Tips. Basically you put these small rubber tips on the inside of your feeder. The underside, beneath the ports, have little pieces of plastic ready to receive the tips. I simply squeezed the tip onto the plastic. Done: No more floating flies!

Enjoy the hummingbirds this year and change your nectar often.

Hummingbirds and Colors

I just had to pass this along. Fascinating!

ScienceAlert: Hummingbirds Can See Colours We Can't Even Imagine, Experiment Reveals.https://t.co/p5vof6Wcaf

via @GoogleNews

— The Best Nest of GA (@TheBestNest_GA) June 16, 2020