Husband's Homemade Hummingbird Food

The Earthly Garden by Bobbi A. Chukran
March 27, 2007

Mornin’ earthly gardeners!

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about hummingbirds, and just dug up this great link with lots of information about them on the Bird Watchers Digest website. Great site, BTW!

I also got questions about Husband’s Homemade Hummer Food, so he shared his (very easy) recipe with ya’ll:
Boil a quart of water and mix in one cup sugar, stir until dissolved. Let cool until you can put your finger in it. Pour this into feeders, hang the feeders in a protected spot away from pets, and stand back! Our feeders each hold one quart, but we only fill them halfway each time. We change them twice a week or refill sooner if needed, and it’s important to keep mold and other gunk like that from growing in the sugar water. Every week or so in the high hummer summer season, we clean the feeders using just a few drops of vinegar in a lot of water, scrubbing with a brush if necessary. Then rinse very well.

We don’t use red dye in our food; it’s just not necessary, and I’d hate to harm the birds. Most feeders either have red tips on the ends of the tubes, or red disks at the bottom, and these are sufficient to attract the birds.

Growing lots of red flowers and vines and things that have red blooms will also help you attract hummingbirds. And then there’s the blooming rosemary bush, which they love!

Until next time, go attract some hummers to your garden, and

dig it!

bobbi c.
All text and photos are copyright ©2007 by Bobbi A. Chukran. All rights reserved.