Puget Sound Bird Fest offers tips on attracting birds to your garden

One of the things I enjoy most about my garden is sharing it with my bird friends. My favorites are the year-round residents including Roberta and Robby robin, Nelly and Nicolas nuthatch, Charlotte and Charlie chickadee, and Hanna and Harvey Hummingbird, but I get exciting visits from colorful migrating birds as well.

Learn to attract a wide variety of birds to your garden at the Puget Sound Bird Fest Friday through Sunday in Edmonds.

For information about locations and programs go to www.pugetsoundbirdfest.org.

Included in the festival are talks by well-known bird experts, guided walks and field trips, special classes and activities for kids, a tour of certified backyard wildlife habitats and much more. Some festival activities require a fee and advance registration.

Keep slugs and snails at bay

Wedding bells are ringing for the slugs and snails that inhabit your garden. These mollusk troublemakers are egg-laying machines all summer long, but they're extra prolific in fall. That's because they know they may not survive the long cold winter and therefore need to lay beaucoup eggs now that will hatch in spring to ensure that there will be plenty of offspring to carry on their important work of devouring our plants.

Snails build up populations faster than slugs because they reproduce more often, but both slugs and snails are good at adding to the population.

In fall the average snail can lay up to 85 eggs, and each slug can lay up to 100 at a shot. Apply one of the safer slug baits containing iron sulfate such as Sluggo, Worryfree or Escargo now. You'll never exterminate all of these midnight marauders from your garden, but applying bait now should help reduce the number of slugs and snails that will hatch out to make your life miserable next spring.

Beat birds

to the punch

It's great fun to grow a sunflower, and if you harvest the seeds for eating, they're quite good for you. The seeds are a source of calcium and iron, and contain no cholesterol. You have to beat the birds to the seeds, however, or they will quickly disappear in an avian feast.

The problem is that the seeds must be allowed to ripen on the head to be flavorful, but the seeds on the outer edges of the head ripen first and it can take the ones in the center an additional week or two to ripen up. By the time the center seeds are ready to harvest, the birds will have ransacked the outer ones.

To beat the birds to the bounty, as soon as the back of the head has turned yellow, cut the head leaving enough stem to tie a string to and use it to hang the heads upside-down in a dry, well-ventilated location. Cover the heads with cheesecloth to catch seeds that will fall as they ripen. Once all of the seeds have turned their mature color, remove the ones that haven't fallen by rubbing the faces of two flowers against each other over a large bowl, or if you only grew one sunflower, rub off the seeds with a towel.

Soak the seeds in saltwater overnight, then spread on a cookie sheet and roast at 150 to 200 degrees for three or four hours until the seeds are completely dry. Then get ready for a great snack. Be warned: No one can eat less than 100 at a sitting!

Ciscoe Morris: ciscoe@ciscoe.com. "Gardening with Ciscoe" airs at 10 a.m. Saturdays on KING-TV.