A CITY GIRL: Adding Birdhouses

Friends, I've purchased a formal domain, and I'm working and learning how to get it up and running quickly. Hopefully, there shouldn't a problem with the transition with email updates and such. I'll be sure to let you know.

I spend day 199 of the forest garden installing birdhouses. It was an easy project to complete. I wasn't joking about the birdhouse purchase when I mentioned it here. I think I bought them that day actually. I want the garden to be a natural oasis. To help control the insect population, I need the birds. I have a water and a feeder for them, but I wanted to give them a reason to stay. Sure, they will eat some of my harvest, but that's ok. There should be plenty. I think they recently figured out that the goji berries were a treat.

In college we have to design a bird house, and I soon realized each type of bird has unique requirements for their nest. I purchased the birdhouses from this ETSY shop for about $6 a piece, so it was worth it to buy them instead of make them. They are for bluebirds with a 1.5 inch diameter entrance. As also with my inspiration, they are mounted on a pole 5 feet off the ground.

I read that it's best to not mount them to a tree for protection from predators and is best to mount on a post in the sun. The direction it faces is whatever is best for the bird watcher. They all face the house for me. I also tried to space them out as best I could. They are at least 25 feet from each other.

Mounting them to the metal pol was really easy. The tool part, not so much. I found this video helpful, but I decided to go with bigger the conduit.

The store wouldn't cut the conduit for me. I wanted the birdhouse entry at 5 feet and 18 inch of pole in the ground. Lucky for me, a neighbor had borrowed the metal cutting tool from another neighbor. Then I mounted the poles to the birdhouses. I only bought 1 bag of screws, but I already had some to finish finish the job. I used the stake, just like the video, to make the 18 inch deep hole and used my weight to push the poles with the attached birdhouses into the ground. I tend to change my mind about things, so I didn't want to use concrete... just in case.