Moon's Graden

Do you grow millet for your birds?  I plant some seed every year and
end up sharing a lot of it with the wild birds.  I have no problem
sharing (I love watching the little guys alight and try to keep their
balance on a spray of millet) but I have noticed that the millet
doesn't look as pretty as the millet I buy in the pet stores.  

For seed I use the little pieces of millet in the bottom of the jar.  
Should I be using seed raised for planting a crop?  Is spray millet
some kind of hybrid like most eating corn? What am I doing wrong?  

My fear is that commercial growers use something to protect the crops.
Does the rule with fruit apply here?: if it looks good and is blemish-free,
the grower has used pesticides.  Does anybody here know how the commercial
millet is raised?

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Tobaccoville, NC

Thanks for asking this! John and I were wondering the same thing!
I believe I read somewhere once that millet fields are covered
with netting to protect it from wild birds, but I don't know
how they get it so plump and pretty! I would LOVE to try millet
next year!

Debbie

: Thanks for asking this! John and I were wondering the same thing!
: I believe I read somewhere once that millet fields are covered
: with netting to protect it from wild birds, but I don't know
: how they get it so plump and pretty! I would LOVE to try millet
: next year!

: > Do you grow millet for your birds?  I plant some seed every year and
: > end up sharing a lot of it with the wild birds.  I have no problem
: > sharing (I love watching the little guys alight and try to keep their
: > balance on a spray of millet) but I have noticed that the millet
: > doesn't look as pretty as the millet I buy in the pet stores.  

Shepherd's Seeds sells millet as part of their "songbird collection"
Unfortunately, I don't have the info with me.  Maybe someone over in
rec.garden will.  So you can grow it at home.  I think you'd get
better results with better seeds.

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Lori R. Coulson                            Zone 5
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* Darkness stirs, and wakes imagination...          *  
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        Could it be that millet is like corn, i.e. it grows much more
lush when grown in large plots because of cross-fertilization?  I'm no
gardener, but I do know that you need a fairly large plot of corn to get
good-looking ears.  

Hi Mike,

Hey, I'd like to grow some millet.  When do you plant it, how big does it
get, and how long does it take to produce millet.
Thanks
Rita

: Hey, I'd like to grow some millet.  When do you plant it, how big does it
: get, and how long does it take to produce millet.
: Thanks
: Rita

I sew a patch of millet in the spring.  Right now it's about a foot high
and looks healthy.  By the end of the summer it will be about four feet
high and sporting sprays of millet.  Depending on where you live, it
may not be too late to plant -- I'm no expert,  keep in mind.  Our budgies
get what the wild birds don't eat and neither group has complained!
Good luck with it.

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Tobaccoville, NC

Thanks Mike,
I live in Ga. and theres lots of summer still left so I will sow me a
patch this week.  I sure hope the wild birds don't get them all, I wonder
if the squirrells like it?  They usually get all my sunflowers.

Thanks
Rita

    I give my bird millet sprays in a*** basket that had a
geranium in it until the bird got to it.  Now on the 'hanging blasted
heath' as I call it I give him various treats.  Just below it is one of
my houseplants that now has a thriving batch of millet growing from it.
    Maybe I should give up weeding my indoor plants and just grow the
millet?

Rowan Winters