The Marigold Potager – A Zone 3 Prairie Garden

An easy to make birdseed wreath using natural ingredients that all birds love.

As soon as November hits, I get into wreath making mode… evergreen wreaths for the door and the shop, herbal wreaths for the kitchen, yummy seedy ones for the birds. These lovely birdseed wreaths are easy to make, great for gift giving, and oh so festive for the holidays.

When I first started making wreaths for the birds, I trialed three recipes I found on-line to see which ones the birds would like the very best. Two of the wreaths were made with suet and other natural ingredients, and one was that yucky wreath made with flour, gelatin, and corn syrup that keeps making it’s rounds on the internet. This is not something that they would be eating in the wild so why anyone would think this is a nice treat is beyond me.

To be fair, they all attracted birds, even that one that I do not like, but as I cannot in good conscience feed my birds corn syrup and white flour, I stick to the two suet based recipes.

I have now been making these wreaths more than 10 years (boy, has that ever gone fast!). I’ve made all sizes, tried different things, and learned a few things along the way, too.

This is the recipe for the wreath that I make most often, the one I used to mostly sell at the greenhouse. It has only four ingredients… suet, peanut butter, cornmeal, and a really good quality of wild birdseed, suitable for the birds in my area.

Ingredients

Suet – You can find small bags of suet in the frozen meats section of the grocery store. One bag is about 3 cups of nice, white, clean suet in pelleted form. It melts quickly and is super easy to use. This pelleted suet is dehydrated, so use a bit more than the recipe calls for to make a nice, fatty wreath that the birds love.

Peanut Butter – You can use chunky or smooth, both work just fine.

• Make sure that you use a peanut butter that does not have xylitol (also sometimes called Birch Sugar) in it, as it is not good for birds and is deadly for your pups. Dogs love birdseed wreaths as much as the birds do, all that lard and peanut butter ; )
• Also, the best peanut butter to use has no additives.. no salt, no sugar. Just peanuts.

Cornmeal – If you have no cornmeal, or prefer not to use it, replace it with small flake oats, or steel cut oats. I have even used cream of wheat in a pinch.

Birdseed – I use a birdseed that consists mostly of black oil sunflower seeds, which is loved by birds everywhere. I recommend going to a bird store to find the blends most liked by the birds in your area.

The best seeds, the ones most liked by the birds, are sunflower, nyjer, safflower, peanuts, and then white millet. If you use the seed blends that are low in sunflowers, but high in white millet and corn, it might appeal to rodents more than birds. Eek! Also, millet is tossed to the ground for the ground pecking birds to eat, so you may end up with weeds sprouting in spring.

The Recipe

• 1 cup of suet (1.5 cups if using the bagged suet)
• 1 cup of peanut butter
• 1 cup of cornmeal
• 4 cups of high-quality birdseed

1. Melt your suet in a large pot at a low heat.
2. Add the peanut butter, stir till it is all melted.
3. Add the seeds and cornmeal, stir till well coated so that it sets well.
4. Put the mix into a bundt pan to make it look fancy. Let harden in pan overnight, can also be placed into the fridge or freezer to set up faster. This duo pan would make two smaller ‘wreaths’, great size for gifting.

*Tips

When I was making these wreaths, I discovered that after much love and attention from the birds, the wreaths would often crack in two at the weak point. The birds liked to start pecking at the top of the wreath, up by the string, and then work their way down. As the topside narrowed and weakened, the wreath eventually broke and fell to the ground.

When a wreath fell at my house, the evidence was quickly gobbled up by my two garden helpers, as they love anything with peanut butter. The bespeckled remains would then grace the yard… I had to come up with an organic strategy to ensure the wreaths stayed together for the birds to enjoy, not my pups.

After some googling, I came upon someone using a wire bent into a wreath shape. I knew I did not want to go that route, not practical for me to be bending many rings of wire and having them hanging in the trees. I then came upon one that was using bits of twigs tied together with florist’s wire … decided to use that idea but modified to use no wires.

I gathered some grapevines from the garden and twisted them together, making these wee little grapevine rings. No need for wire or string, just use pliable branches that you can twist together.

They do not have to be grapevines, just any branches that are thin and bendable. I have used branches from all sorts of shrubs over the years.

Make a ring to the size you want, hold it together with your hand while you weave the ends in through the center of the ring, go round and round as many times as you can so that it stays together.

Pour some birdseed mix in the bottom of the pan, add one or two of these rings into the cake pan and push into the warm seed mixture. Top up with the rest of the mix… voila! The rings are biodegradable, no wires used at all, and your wreath stays together beautifully till the very end.

Here you can see some of the twigs, but they blend in nicely, do not detract from your lovely wreath.

Use garden twine to make a loop for hanging it from a hook or nail. I like to put a bit of pretty ribbon underneath the string so that the string does not start to bite into the wreath. The ribbon adds a bit of bling for the holidays and acts like a buffer, of sorts.

1. Wrap the ribbon around the wreath and make one knot in the ribbon, but do not tie the bow. Then take a length of twine and wrap it around the wreath, on top of the ribbon, and knot the ribbon once again, over top of the string. Make bow in the ribbon, if you want one.
2. Knot the two strands of twine as close to the wreath as you can, just behind the knot in the ribbon. The knot is at the very back of the wreath. This helps keep the wreath lying flat against the tree/fence.
3. Leave enough twine to make a 3 or 4 inch loop for hanging the wreath.

These wreaths work best if they are backed by something solid, rather than hanging freely from a shepherd’s hook. If you have a large tree, as above, or a fence that you can nail a hook into.

I used to hang them on this lovely huge cedar that was outside my office window on the acreage. Here at the new house, I have been pinning them to the backyard fence post. However, I’ve noticed that I tend to have more songbirds, sapsuckers, and woodpeckers in the front (probably due to the dog), so this year, I am changing place and putting it out front instead.

You can also use a mini bundt cake pan to make wee little wreaths that are so super cute! This mini bundt cake pan is more expensive, but the cakes would sure look fancy. I have not tried the silicone pans so cannot give feedback on how they would hold up. The recipe makes 6 small ones or one medium sized wreath.

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Make your wreaths in any size.

To make them extra special, you can add a ‘special frosting’ of suet and peanuts. Put roasted, unsalted peanuts at the bottom of the pan, add extra melted suet to hold them together and create the look of frosting.

I hope you enjoy making these as much as I do, feed the birds through the tough winter months.

Happy Holidays ~ Tanja