I also managed to harvest some grapes this year. In the past I've tried netting the wide-spreading vines but the birds have always managed to get inside and strip the crop.
This year, I selected four promising bunches just a few days out from brix peak and I tied old bread bags around them, making just a small slit so they could breathe. It worked. I regard four out of about 50 bunches as a triumph in the field of fruit retention.
Back in early summer the plum tree was stripped, too, but I draw the line at climbing a tree and bagging stone fruit. That would be plum crazy.
This year, produce attacks have come from terrestrial beings as well as the more arboreal-airborne ones. For the first time, I decided to plant some bok choy in a large pot.
It all started pretty well but then the leaves began exhibiting more variegation than they should.
One day, through the kitchen window, I spotted the cause: I saw a rabbit stretched up on its hind legs and nibbling the leaves. He must have told his mates because, like the redcurrants and the plums, the Asian greens started to disappear more rapidly, the end result of which was that I harvested none.
Perhaps a scarecrow is the answer, something tastefully simple, offset with a Trump hairpiece. On second thoughts, we don't want to alarm the birds, just discourage them, in which case a more traditional scarecrow might do the trick.
On a more positive note, it looks as though my watermelons might make it through. They, too, are growing in a pot and the fruit are about the size of very large grapefruit.
I expect the outer skin might beat the birds though I have read that, in certain parts of the world, crows will peck holes to gain access to the inner juices during periods of dry weather.
Pheasants can apparently do the same. There are some wild ones roaming around our house so, if holes start to appear in my melons, I'll know who to blame.
I also read that coyotes, raccoons and deer are partial to a spot of watermelon but we don't have any of those in the neighbourhood. Even if we did, I couldn't see myself building a protective wire-netting fence around a pot plant. That, too, would be plum crazy.
So I take comfort in the fact that we still have oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit - and, to date, watermelons - which we don't have to share with the fauna so I mustn't grumble.
And I can still hold on to the memory of that delicious blueberry.
But, despite the positives, I have firmly resolved that next season I will just plant birdseed.
- Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.
