[Lardman]

Snap! Last year I caught a squirrel eating my prize squash I was going to pick that day

Ah yes tree rats  mine also tend to plant walnut trees in the most stupid of places.  Do you have vindictive sparrows who just sit and pluck the flowers off your beans for fun 

The problems were just the same.

Not entirely true. Certainly my personal favourite, the allium leaf miner is a new comer, people laugh when I tell them I even have to net my garlic and onions.

I've spent the afternoon putting asparagus beetles in soapy water, wish Id have netted those too. 

[solway cropper]

I encourage a lot of wildlife in the garden. Birds, frogs and toads, hedgehogs, etc. They seem to keep a lot of pests in check but I do have to net my brassicas against the cabbage whites. I do think that some problems are down to poor housekeeping (or garden-keeping) but it's easy for me to say that as I can spend all day every day in the garden if I want to. I guess it's quite difficult for people who can only spend a few hours a week at the allotment.

[beesrus]

Like it or not we farm food in ways plants are not supposed to grow and hence have become reliant on plants that need constant protection. Also I guess most living things have a need for the same nutrients
I have huge empathy with Diospyros's idyll wishes and would extend that to include the living of life itself, not just the growing of food. Fortress life is to be resisted. It irks me. One of the obvious answers is to sustain life with what other beings find unattractive.

On the allotment, my problem pests are birds, cabbage white caterpillars and slugs. Others I can deal with and accept. In the garden, the birds hardly register, but the slugs are horrendous.
With more knowledge and more effort, I find I can use less nets.... apart from the brassicas. Some of the answer is to stop growing the ludicrously vulnerable plants such as carrots out of doors. A greenhouse could be seen as a fortress protection I guess, but somehow it doesn't feel such a tyranny, more a little oasis... that's important. Funnily enough I never used to bother much with carrots until the battle with the fly became personal. Shows how easy it is to get embroiled in a stand off with a little fly just going about it's business. 
One perennial that doesn't need protection are globe artichokes. They come up every year without fail. Yes, they can have a problem with ants farming black fly, but it's handle-able. Likewise with broad beans. The only trouble is I don't like to eat artichokes. I only grow them for the structural foliage and flowers.

[diospyros]

Funnily enough I never used to bother much with carrots until the battle with the fly became personal. Shows how easy it is to get embroiled in a stand off with a little fly just going about it's business. 

I think that's hit the nail on the head!  Is it really worth it.  Carrots though I have a cunning plan for - I sowed some very old seed in the back garden, the sparrows dust-bathed and trashed the patch, a few seedlings have come up nonetheless and hidden amongst the ornamentals, miles from any other veg plots, I think I may be on for another perfect specimen like the ONE I grew last year!

Yes, encouraging predators is part of the ideal.  It just takes time to build up the numbers I guess.  I'm next to the hedge so there's hopefully a reservoir of a proper ecosystem there.

You know, at work we try to make/encourage farmers to set aside ecological focus areas, maybe each allotment should be required to do the same, or wildlife corridors across each site, maintained by the community of plot holders.

[LilacSandy]

We have a large area at the bottom of our field for wild life and and a wild life corridor down the middle of the plots.  The trouble is that the bunnies and muntjac deer live down there together with nesting pheasant and wood pigeons, it is lovely to go down there either early morning or late at night to see them all, or watch the strutting pheasants in their spring plumage blunder about the plots.

[Salmo]

Wood pigeons are my problem they do not seem to bother leeks onions carrots broad and runner beans though.

Broad beans are not safe on my plot!

 Jackdaws pull up any bean that shows its head. I think they are looking for the worm or other bug that might come up with the roots. Often the stem snaps off with the tug. Plant remains just left lying there.

Later on, just a few days before you are going to have the first lovely picking,. jackdaws may pay another visit and peck the pods to eat the beans inside. Often pheasants help them with this task.

Rabbits are not fond of broad beans. Farmers often used to grow a strip of field beans alongside a wood. The rabbits would not bother to cross the barrier to eat crops the other side. True.

[diospyros]

We have a large area at the bottom of our field for wild life and and a wild life corridor down the middle of the plots.  The trouble is that the bunnies and muntjac deer live down there

What you maybe need is more like what we prescribe as beetle banks (raised berms with tussocky grasses like cocksfoot), and pollen and nectar mix (legumes, umbellifers, composites, mown once or twice a year to keep a succession of flowers).  It's very much "growing wildlife" rather than just letting an area go wild to its own devices.

I do remember from Watership Down that rabbits don't eat broad beans, and for this reason have hidden my celeriac in there... how long that lasts I don't yet know!

[Becky-Lou]

I have just read about a fella Terry Walton in Wales who has had his allotment for over 50 yrs and he was saying that years ago there was no need for netting or barriers, pellets and some sprays you just grew things and had little damage but everything has changed and the need for netting etc is mandatory for some things like brassicas. There are natural remedies you can use but wether they actually work is something I want to find out. I am afraid that today's allotments are a never ending battle between us and the pests and also the weeds. It may have something to do with the climate control as our weather is changing we are seeing lots and lots more pests.

Hmmm...I was talking to an old boy on my Lincoln allotment a few days ago who told me how he used to annihilate all plant diseases, pests and weeds with chemicals!  He found the concept of organic gardening quite amusing (and frankly, after seeing the havoc slugs have perpetrated over the last week, I can see where he's coming from!).  Maybe Wales was a vegetable paradise back then, but I'm not sure anywhere else was

[surbie100]

I've just read Terry's book about his plot. He does make the point that when he started to switch to organic methods of growing a) he realised his soil was exhausted from all the growing and chemicals and b) his yields were poor to begin with because he was comparing his beginner organics to chemical fertilisers and suffered a lot from pests.

I have real problems with jackdaws pulling plants out at home, but at the plot it's slugs, cabbage whites, squirrels and pigeons - and now tomato moth. And the sparrows will eat any tasty young plants too (particularly beets, spinach etc) if they aren't netted. Maybe the animals at least have learned that it's a concentrated source of food? I always assume I'll have quite a few losses, and am trying to get better at accepting it as a fact of life. I grow carrots on the balcony at home, so at least those are (other than being pruned by the jackdaws) pest-free.

[JayG]

Babies? 

[Handy Andi]

I've found that runner and French beans don't seem to have any major pests - I grow both in modules and plant out when they've got a few good leaves. With lettuces, I've also found that red or purple varieties (lollo rosso, sangria, etc) don't get even slightly touched by slugs, whereas green leaves do - the slightly bitter taste obviously puts them off. Chard also doesn't get bothered by anything (once it reaches a decent size, several inches tall)

[4 Seasons]

Rhubarb
Sweetcorn
Blackcurrants
Courgettes
Onions
Garlic
Mulberries
Rapberries
Peas
Wizzard beans

I never protect any of the above and always seem to get a decent crop off them, some years better than others which is natural.

[RJR_38]

Rhubarb
Sweetcorn - get eaten by deer here
Blackcurrants - eaten by birds
Courgettes
Onions
Garlic
Mulberries
Rapberries - autumn ones ok but summer ones are stripped by birds
Peas
Wizzard beans

I never protect any of the above and always seem to get a decent crop off them, some years better than others which is natural.

[jaydig]

The mice eat the pea and bean seeds, and if any of them actually grow, the pea and bean weavil decimate the leaves.
The leek moth destroys the leeks.
The slugs eat the lettuce and radish.
The pigeons eat the brassicas, any that survive are used as egg laying material by the cabbage whites.
The rabbits eat the sweetcorn.
The birds take the strawberries.
The fly infests the carrots.
Oh, yes! I forgot Mr Badger, who ate every single gooseberry on the bush!
Add to these the onion white rot, potato blight, raspberry beetle, parsnip canker, club root, etc. etc., and it's nothing short of a miracle that any of us gets a crop of any sort. BUT, we do, don't we.

I spend hours covering stuff with nets, and I'm sure that if we stopped to think about everying that could go wrong we'd never put a spade in the ground, but the joy of eating your own fresh fruit and veg outweighs any little problems we might encounter along the way.