Missing 48 broadbean seeds...............

[Nora42]

 

I have just been away for 4 days in the peak district when /I left my broad bean seeds in their modules had dried out a bit and were just beginning to sprout.
on inspection this morning they have all gone the modules have a small hole where the seed was no disturbed soil no mess.
that counts out the squirrels and the jays which I know make a mess.
so I am blaming MICE.
I don't know weather to laugh or cry or just put it down to experience.
a local  mouse family have bellies full of 48 broad bean seeds  I just wish they had not been mine.

I will replant tomorrow and cover with chicken wire...
Nora

[Nora42]

[Ian Pearson]

Before planting, crush some garlic in a poly bag, and add the beans, rolling them around in the squashed garlic to coat them in juice. The smell seems to disguise them from mice. The old method was to use paraffin, but that is probably not advisable.
Pre-sprouting the seed also seems to help avoid the attention of mice.
Alternatively put the module tray where mice cannot reach (!)

[pumkinlover]

How nice of you to feed the mices!!

[rugbypost]

Not sure if it was my Dad or Grandfather used to soak his pea and bean seed in paraffin to stop mice taking the seed. Not trey this an don't think I will has anyone done this in the past

[jimtheworzel]

I sow in a  fish box  from the local chippy  in small pots then cove with a sheet of glass and place in a  cold frame-after a week they are through  jim

I do the same with pea seed and plant out later when large enough. never anytrouble with mice

[ancellsfarmer]

Chicken wire is not good enough, a mouse will go through a much smaller hole, even with its belly full!
Did you call them Little Nippers! Your local hardware store will have just that.

[artichoke]

I agree that pre-sprouting seems to attract fewer predators.....I sprout them in plastic boxes with damp cloth, and plant them out as soon as a root shows, gradually building up the row. It is quite surprising how varied in time the germination is.

[Digeroo]

Very frustrating.  Squirrels here to not leave any signs except a very small dent in the soil and maybe some tiny scratch marks, the beans simply disappear.  Voles like them as well.

Suggest sowing under plastic bottle cloches with a cane through the top if your plot is windy.  Agree about chitting them.  The critters do not seem to eat the green shoot.  Though I have had a whole row eaten just leaving the green shoot behind.

I have watched the squirrel gently moving chicken wire they are very clever, and the vole simply goes through the holes or digs under it.   

[laurieuk]

When I first started as a garden boy back in the 40s hardly any beans or peas were planted without being soaked in paraffin or rolled in red lead, but then HEALTH and SAFETY had not been heard of.

[Nora42]

so glad that you have posted today - for some reason I cannot see this thread on the forum - as baffling as the disappearance of my bean seeds.
I have replanted the beans and put them under cover - the plastic cloche top that comes with the module tray I will just have to check that they are not too dry.
I will not be defeated, I would not even know where to buy paraffin? And my only recollection of the stuff is as a small child and the winter of discontent in the 70's I remember not liking the smell of the lamp.

rolled in red lead Laurie? good grief I'm not a fan off health and safety but it's hard to believe that thing like that were thought of as ok.
Nora 

[Paul.and.Lynda]

You can buy pre-packed paraffin in Garden Centres. Only problem is it comes in 5 litres.
You used to be able to go and buy if in hardware stores in a glass jar for garden purposes.

[artichoke]

My goodness, I well remember the winter of discontent and I had a paraffin stove to keep one room warm for my three small children and I rather liked the smell. I was an expert in wick trimming, and the colour of the flame. (Blue good, yellow and orange bad).

When I was a child in Scotland in the late 40s and 50s, my parents used one in our bedroom, and as a bored child in bed, constantly ill, I lassooed it with my dressing gown cord and brought it crashing down. I was seriously walloped for nearly causing a conflagration.

Happy days.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I remember we used paraffin heaters all the time when I was little. There was a gallon bottle with a valve which you inverted and placed behind the wick. They probably weren't very efficient, but the place wasn't heated that much, and there was no heating upstairs so I suppose we were used to it.

[laurieuk]

so glad that you have posted today - for some reason I cannot see this thread on the forum - as baffling as the disappearance of my bean seeds.
I have replanted the beans and put them under cover - the plastic cloche top that comes with the module tray I will just have to check that they are not too dry.
I will not be defeated, I would not even know where to buy paraffin? And my only recollection of the stuff is as a small child and the winter of discontent in the 70's I remember not liking the smell of the lamp.

rolled in red lead Laurie? good grief I'm not a fan off health and safety but it's hard to believe that thing like that were thought of as ok.
Nora

I am just putting together a list of things we used to do and use back in "The bad old days" for a talk to give to our local garden society such as some of the sprays etc, that we used. Cyanide for any living pest in the cucumber or melon houses with no locks on the doors anyone could have walked in and dropped down dead. Those were the days 

[Ian Pearson]

Laurieuk, I remember my grandfather in the seventies still using cyanide to sort out a large wasp byke (or nest). I watched him place a teaspoonful of the powder at the entrance hole. Every wasp going in or out dropped out of the air, dead in a heap. I can remember DDT being used then too (on food crops), under the brand name Didimac if I remember correctly. And fumigating with nicotine was another regular technique that has passed into history.

[laurieuk]

Hi Ian,
We used DDT all the time and nicotine shreds are still available to commercial growers. There was an insecticide called Volk that was used a lot but not now. There is a huge list of what we used to use that can no longer be used but some are only because  they have not been re-registered , like Armillatox still be bought but is no longer called a soil sterilant but a soap based cleaner. It is one of the only things that will clear club root.