Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: TonyD on November 07, 2009, 08:41:57
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over the years i have worked on many differant farms and have noticed some strange bedfellows for instance on a farm whose main grop was cabbage and cauliflowers every three beds they grew a bed of Chinese cabbage(nappa) because the bugs that attacked the main crop preferred the Chinese cabbage. so they sprayed the Chinese cabbage and not the main crop.
on a vineyard they grew roses at the end of each row, and roses all along the road ways for the same reason.
potato farms that grew sweet potatoes along side the main crop.
in my small garden i notice that the only slug damage i had was on the marigolds that bodered my beans, but none on my beans.
i have dug up half of my lawn an area 20 ft by 14 ft and have made a raised bed. i am thinking of putting a copper water pipe all around the top of the wood cost permitting. that and the marigolds all around may save me some heart and backache. has anybody tried this?
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I certainly use marigolds amongst my brassicas. (African or tagetes) It helps when they are small but the slugs/snails seem to prefer the brassicas later in the season... I do find it helps reduce whitefly though... :)
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We always grow french marigolds in the greenhouse with the toms
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try nasturtiums near the brasicca beds, cabage white butterflies prefer them to lay their eggs on!! ;) and plant a teasel amongst your roses, the aphids move onto them, just in time for the roses to flower. ;D ;D
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Wish someone would tell the cabbage white butterflies to lay their eggs on my nasturtiums, they much prefer my sprouts, PSB and cauliflower.
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I have often heard that idea of growing stuff near by to attract pests like black fly but no one actually said that you shold spray these plants. It makes sense though especially when the nasty chemicals were used. The things you ate would not need to be sprayed.
Copper wire is cheaper than water pipes and I am lead to believe the slugs wont slither across anything copper.
We had a plot holder who spent a fortune making raised beds surrounding them with copper then watered that stuff nemotoads I think, it is called. It did not work out for him, he still got slug damage and it cost him quite a bit.
We have had terrible trouble with slugs on our plot, it was lower than our neighbour but raising the beds and keeping a sort of ditch around the insides seems to work, put some lengths of old rotting wood over the lowest bit then every visit Collect the slugs is what one of our allotment holders showed us he does, he keeps score of how many he catches. Seems to be quite a few on his score card. Turn the wood over and there are always clusters of them there.
He cuts them in two with a pen knife a jug of salt water does a reasonable job. It gets horribly slimy yuk.
The couple who seem to have less slugs on their plot keep chickens at home and bring the chuks down regularly for a good peck round.
It does seem like an unwinnable war with them. I read that they can go for ages without eating anything.
Let us know how you get on and thanks for explaining the sacrificial planting system.
Marigolds are very useful, we have planted them round the carrots two years running and had no carrot fly, not sure if it is that or the planting end of May and digging up before September we did at the same time. (Being told that the carrot fly comes round every three months)
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We have had terrible trouble with slugs on our plot, it was lower than our neighbour but raising the beds and keeping a sort of ditch around the insides seems to work, put some lengths of old rotting wood over the lowest bit then every visit Collect the slugs is what one of our allotment holders showed us he does, he keeps score of how many he catches. Seems to be quite a few on his score card. Turn the wood over and there are always clusters of them there.
He cuts them in two with a pen knife a jug of salt water does a reasonable job. It gets horribly slimy yuk.
The couple who seem to have less slugs on their plot keep chickens at home and bring the chuks down regularly for a good peck round.
It does seem like an unwinnable war with them. I read that they can go for ages without eating anything.
The majority of British slugs are actually carnivorous, they eat other slugs. And most of the others lack the strength of mouth parts to eat green material, they live on partly decomposed matter. It is snails which do the most damage to plants rather than slugs.
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Wish someone would tell the cabbage white butterflies to lay their eggs on my nasturtiums, they much prefer my sprouts, PSB and cauliflower.
ditto >:(
We have had terrible trouble with slugs on our plot, it was lower than our neighbour but raising the beds and keeping a sort of ditch around the insides seems to work, put some lengths of old rotting wood over the lowest bit then every visit Collect the slugs is what one of our allotment holders showed us he does, he keeps score of how many he catches. Seems to be quite a few on his score card. Turn the wood over and there are always clusters of them there.
He cuts them in two with a pen knife a jug of salt water does a reasonable job. It gets horribly slimy yuk.
The couple who seem to have less slugs on their plot keep chickens at home and bring the chuks down regularly for a good peck round.
It does seem like an unwinnable war with them. I read that they can go for ages without eating anything.
The majority of British slugs are actually carnivorous, they eat other slugs. And most of the others lack the strength of mouth parts to eat green material, they live on partly decomposed matter. It is snails which do the most damage to plants rather than slugs.
really, i wish someone told the slugs in my garden this :-\ :(.
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have you actually seen slugs doing the damage? it usually is snails that are the real villain, true, the lace slugs like fresh greens, but most of the others ptrefer partially rotten food. ( the big black ones eat cat sh*t)
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( the big black ones eat cat sh*t)
really???? blergh!
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have you actually seen slugs doing the damage? it usually is snails that are the real villain, true, the lace slugs like fresh greens, but most of the others ptrefer partially rotten food. ( the big black ones eat cat sh*t)
there are three main types i have caught in the act, some little black one which i believe live in the soil, then there are some big orangey ones that from time to time munch on my lettuce and soft leaf veges and then there are some light grey/ whitish ones that get in there when they are about but there numbers are a lot less than the first two.
i do have snails but i rarely find them in the vege patch, more among the flowers in the flower bed section of the garden and in the last two years i have found that their numbers a very much reduced, but it think this is due to the garden much better cultivated now and they have a lot less places to hide.....i think.
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the little black ones are juveniles, and yes, they travel through the soil (under copper rings) ;)
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the little black ones are juveniles, and yes, they travel through the soil (under copper rings) ;)
juveniles for which ones the orangey ones/ the black ones, i don't see much of latter in my garden.
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I always put lots of grapevine cuttings in the greenhouse - as they root they become a lure for vine weevil and tend to keep them off other stuff they like - like strawberries. You can of course use strawberries to keep them off something else.
Both these plants have roots that are fairly easy to wash, and if they aren't too badly nibbled they will survive for another go.
Vine weevils are b%^&*.
NB. The standard insecticide is a neonicotinoid - and they are all implicated in killing bees because they are too persistent.
Just before they came out they banned nicotine - a simple, controllable and very biodegradable poison we are all confident handling. Surprise surprise.
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Only snails climb any distance - so any rasping damage more than a few cm from a damp hiding place is almost certainly snail damage - especially in dry weather.
The majority of British slugs are actually carnivorous, they eat other slugs. And most of the others lack the strength of mouth parts to eat green material, they live on partly decomposed matter. It is snails which do the most damage to plants rather than slugs.
The quote above is probably true, except if it implies slugs hunt and control themselves - in which case slugs would soon eat each other into extinction. :)
I was told on good authority that real specialist carnivore slug-hunting slugs do exist but they are very rare (wolves are always rarer than sheep) - this isn't slug cannibalism because they are a separate species (I can't remember the distinguishing features but I remember they are supposed to be fairly clear-cut).
The species you tend to see 'out and about' will eat whatever is available, including each other in a pinch - especially if the 'other' is already dead.
I'm also confused about the mouthpart bit because my experience (with a heavy boot) tells me slug skins are amazingly tough whereas lettuce leaves can be crushed to a pulp by mere careless handling.
I won't deny that snails can be worse in some environments - I've noticed they are very prevalent in gardens where there are lots of hiding places, but less likely to be found in open ground - where slugs are in the majority and do definitely eat crops.
I also think the case against the keeled slug (for eating root veg underground) is pretty watertight...
NB. I trap big snails for two reasons:
a) to eat later - though I haven't yet worked up the courage or the application (they are fiddly)
b) because I read that big snails scare off little snails via some chemical marker in their tracks - the jury is out on my experiment, but I'm surprised that snail farms haven't found some way of selling this pheremone or whatever to us gardeners...
Cheers.
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vinlander,do you have you any idea how to make nicotine insecticide? could tobacco leaves be used similar to comfry? if so i got the tobacco seeds, and if you don't tell i won't.
tobacco was used as a medicine by the first nation people of north amarica for century's before the white man got there. the sap in the leaves used to draw bee stings and ease discomfort of mosquito bites.also used as a poultice for fevers. if they had a wound that went septic they put a piece of mouldy cornbead on the wound and then wrapped tobacco leaf over it. the wound healed very quickly. where do you think penicillin was found? mouldy cornbread!!
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Try steeping tobacco in cold water and see whether that works. Nicotine is an alkaloid and I'd be wary of heating it too much, though some (I believe a very small proportion) has to survive the process as smoking wouldn't work if it didn't. Be careful as the stuff is deadly. They banned home-made insecticide long ago because gardeners were dying from nicotine poisoning. Eating a packet of fags can kill you.
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And most of the others lack the strength of mouth parts to eat green material,
I wish someone had told the slugs round here they it was impossible to eat my dwarf beans. Not only did they attack the leaves they attached the bean pods as well. Huge black jobs. They also have not read the book when it comes to avoiding copper. Seems to make little difference to them. They were certainly not snails. I call them mobile dog do.
Actually the beans could be used as a sacrificial plant to draw the slugs from other crops. But they do produce nice tasty pods.
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Ah, you got som of the 'Arion ater' slugs, ain't they fantastic creatures!! nearly big enuff for a saddle!! ;)
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ain't they fantastic creatures
They are horrible. I picked 25 off one bean plant on one night alone. Only had small slugs until a few years ago. They do however love beetroot and certain varieties of that, so this might be a good sacrifice.
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Are there any rotation issues with marigolds, or are they alright any/everywhere?
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marigolds are my 'weed of choice' on the allotment, colour all year round (the name calendula' is a hint, 'calendar' is another speling of the same word) no rotation issues at all btw
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It seems I will have to learn to love marigolds, I like tagets but don't like the french or african marigolds.
Anyway I have a related question - when planting out your cabbages etc do you plant the marigolds in between them, around them at the edges??? This is the bit I don't quite get about sacraficial planting!
Thanks
1066
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plant them around the cabbages, and between them. butterflies 'taste' with their feet, and if they land on a mix of marigolds and cabbages, they'll go somewhere else to lay their eggs (they love a large cabbage patch to lay their eggs in, guaranteed food for their offspring!) ;)
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Re: nicotine - I can't think of a less appropriate heading for discussing it, since the whole point of this thread (including my posts) is to avoid sprays - but I'll get round to it here by the end...
I can cover both viewpoints by heartily recommending everyone gets a copy of Lawrence D Hills' "Grow your own fruit and vegetables" it is recently reprinted and I think it's one of the books they can print on demand at Waterstones etc.
It is a brilliant trove of useful cultivation techniques and includes last-resort recipes for home-made solutions against fungi & insects etc.
It is also an organic book from the time when organic growing was a science not a religion.
To make that clearer - anything based on doubt is a science, real science always doubts itself. Any scientist who tells you something's true is probably a very senior one - ie. a politician who occasionally wears a lab coat.
Anything based on what somebody thinks should be true ISN'T SCIENCE (even when, very rarely, it turns out to be true - actually I can't think of an example).
LDH's book is the best antidote to the extremist views we are trapped between as Gardeners - "Anything for a buck" on one hand and on the other hand those who say "never take any risk ever" and "every bug is sacred - save the smallpox virus for posterity".
Still, I don't recommend using nicotine because it can have unforseen consequences.
Even though you have a good idea what it will do to the place it goes (unlike modern synthetics) and have a good idea how long it will take to dissipate (very, very, unlike modern synthetics) you still don't know it won't kill your garden 'pals'.
With nicotine a dying caterpillar might poison a robin even if a dead one won't kill a frog the next day. You won't be condemning your pals or their offspring to a slow death by some neurotoxin that only appears two or three stages down the decomposition, but they might die directly through Murphy's Law. The only thing you can be sure of is that it won't end up in the top predators (hawks, foxes, you, me).
Anyway, here's a link from the US to the same recipe as LDH's: http://www.aselfsufficientlife.com/nicotine-spray-insecticide.html - READ THE ADVICE.
I know this may sound pompous and patronising but forgive me - IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE DARWIN AWARDS ARE THEN DON'T USE THIS SPRAY - I mean it... Look them up on Google, have a good laugh, sit down and re-think.
Any spray that can make insects sick is a major escalation and should only ever be used as a last resort. Never spray before sunset or the bees might get it (though at least the hive won't accumulate nicotine). Sprays that drown pests (soaps) should be tried first because they only hit what you see at the time.
LDH also suggests not making too much at a time because "the safest way to store nicotine is as cigarette ends". Very good advice - it highlights the fact that the flavour of the mixture is the best defence against anything or anyone swallowing it. This was one of the problems with the commercial mixes in the past - though the one mixed with quassia was excellent - it tasted even worse...
Bear in mind that nicotine can go through the skin - fast - so don't let it come into contact with any skin - bare or otherwise - especially thin skin. NEVER WORK IN SPRAY DRIFT OR SPRAY IF THERE'S ANYONE DOWNWIND. A few drops on your fingers won't kill you but wear rubber gloves anyway. It works fast and people's tolerance of nicotine varies wildly - if you get any hint of classic 'first cigarette' symptoms then stop immediately.
Adding soapflakes or soft soap (another 'foliar feed' in its own right) will help against caterpillars.
Good luck and REMEMBER THE DARWIN AWARDS.
PS. The only good thing about Murphy's law is that it occasionally has to work against itself - but it only does that to lull idiots into a false sense of security...
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well said Vinlander !!
Anyone who wishes to enter the darwin awards, ..........well go on then!!! ;) ;D ;D ;D
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plant them around the cabbages, and between them. butterflies 'taste' with their feet, and if they land on a mix of marigolds and cabbages, they'll go somewhere else to lay their eggs (they love a large cabbage patch to lay their eggs in, guaranteed food for their offspring!) ;)
Thanks for the info and the explanation Tony :)
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Could I use a mash of nicotiana instead?
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It should work... :-\
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Has anyone found that African or Tagetes work better than our Common Marigold? I'm not partial to them either. ::)
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Just to put the the cat aoung the pidgins I suppose that every one knows that there are some snails who have no shells and are going around disguised as slugs..
http://www.weichtiere.at/english/gastropoda/terrestrial/slugs.html
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Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo !
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Yes Levi, I should have said Tagetes or African marigolds... :-[
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Yes Levi, I should have said Tagetes or African marigolds... :-[
Ya did! Not bein facetious, just wondering what the difference was, mainly cos I actually like the Common Marigold and hoped they would too ....
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Levi common Pot Marigolds, which I also like, attract bees, butterflies and hoverflies whereas Tagetes (French or African) help repel soil nematodes and whitefly from tomatoes.
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I have used Pot marigolds around brassica beds as well... they help in the summer by attracting other insects like Lacewings... but I find as the seasons draws to an end they get too much mildew... :)
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Thanks Tonybloke - I try to restrain myself normally (and probably fail miserably) but this time I thought I had an excuse to let rip in the common good.
My only regret is that I forgot to reiterate that though nicotine is dangerous, modern synthetics are far worse.
At least with nicotine you know that the minute you stop spraying all risk to you has ended. That's it, you're clean and safe. With synthetics you don't know what's going to happen in 1 or 5 or 10 years.
Remember benlate - it really was harmless to the workers, as advertised, but imagine how they felt when it affected their unborn children.
I hope that all new synthetics are safe but the fact is that so far I can't think of any that are still permitted - except the ones that only came out a few years ago - and most of them (like neonicotinoids) are in serious doubt.
I suppose permethrin is still going but there are still doubts emerging.
Permethrin does show a middle path though - take something tried and trusted to be non-toxic like pyrethrum and twist it as little as possible. However I'd prefer it if they just found a way to make real pyrethrum but cheaper.
Cheers.