What I want for Chritmas........

[Tee Gee]

 .........a long cold winter like we used to have to kill off those bl**dy slugs and snails!!

This year I am plagued with the buggers I am killing them in there hundreds with slug pellets, yet I have still lost over 50% of my brassicas, all of my French beans and now they have found my Strawberry patch!

Picked my first three Strawberries this morning a one of the look perfect until I cut it and there were two maggots squirming about in the flesh.

Add to that those free carrots DT Browns issued with there orders that failed to germinate, along with the other varieties I bought.

Then there is the Sweetcorn ( what Sweetcorn?) I am disgusted with it I got 20 weedy looking plants from two packets of seed although I sowed around 80 seeds, and this is a veg that I usually have great success with as you can see here;


....and that's only a few of the crop I got last year!

Roll on 2015 as it looks like this year will be a year of famine rather than feasting for the Tee Gee household.

How are the rest of you doing in this area?

[Tee Gee]

[Digeroo]

I am certainly struggling with slugs.  My fourth set of runner beans are not looking hopeful.  I am needing piles of slug pellets.  I was given three plant and even with the pellets they have lost their lowest leaves.

I really miss the pigs.  The first year on site we had no slugs at all.  The pigs had eaten them all.

Actually not doing to badly on the strawberry front.   I put a ring of manure round them and that seem to have kept them away.   Not clear why.   Perhaps they enjoy it more than the strawberries.

It will be interesting to see if all the potatoes end up slugged as well.

Also I planted some broccoli in September and it has suddenly decided to do something and go into production.

[Redalder]

Could be better.

Squashes yellow, onions (red baron) bolted, lower leaves of beans like lace,  found another cucumber and another melon chewed through in the greenhouse this morning, no sign of sweet corn (like you had a bumper crop last year) despite using organic slug pellets by the ton. Second year in Cornwall, if it carries on like this.... I will probably just start again next year and we will all remember 2014 as THAT YEAR.

On the other hand the strawberry patch has a resident frog so no slugs, just the blackbird.

[ancellsfarmer]

Ive got quite a few of these:
http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/leopard_slug.htm
They seem to catch up and devour other slugs, distain pellets but will also eat plants. I am sparing them from the usual treatment (cold steel!)to see if their worth exceeds their damage . Any reports welcomed.

[Melbourne12]

Everyone is overrun with slugs this year after the wet winter and spring.  All you can do is keep giving them the tablets (or whatever your favourite treatment is).

Our unusual problem this year is voles.  They're not things that we normally see, but there are hundreds of them!  Why, I don't know.  But they're destroying our strawberries at a rate of knots!

[Obelixx]

Cold winters don't kill off slugs.  Not here anyway.  They just burrow deeper into the soil and come up hungry in spring.   The wet winter and spring have just made it easier for them to move around and find lots of lovely lush, tender growth.

You need to get active with the eco friendly slug pellets on a regular basis from a date that's easy to remember, such as Valentine's day, so you get them as they emerge from hibernation or hatch from eggs and before they've had a chance to breed or scoff.

[juju]

my goodness don't you lot moan a lot!!!!!!!!!!!ah well I do too, I planted 3 seed packets in little pots and I thought mine was disgustingly slow to germinate, some of them were unhealthy looking and of the 3 packets I only got 24 plants. Someone knocked off one plant off and its a deadringer and this year I am not expecting a very good yield. This goes for some of the other seeds too so next year I will go back to Marshalls, at least their seeds don't let me down.
Now the good news is my potatoes are doing brilliantly well so  I KNOW ITS GOING TO BE A GOOD HARVEST. The seed potatoes came from T&M.

[goodlife]

Code Select Expand

How are the rest of you doing in this area?


Hmm...bit up and down here with plant success so far...I had quite few courgette plant orders in from fellow allotmenteers...."easy peasy things to sow....no problem" ;she said....sowed whole packet of new seeds and NOT a single seed have germinated!!!! All the other sort that sowed for myself did germinate and quickly too...so something wasn't right with that packet!
Pigeons!....they've had good go at my brassica plants.. I don't usually need to net as they attack my other's plants, probably next door's , but she is late planting her plants because they are putting new GH up...
but other than that, so far no major issues and I'm not tightening my belt as yet...fat chance!

[Bill Door]

All I seem to be doing is buying slug pellets and netting.  Have had piles of slug slime all over the place.  I do not like using pellets because of the birds but the netting keeps the small ones away from the pellets and keeps the pigeons away from eating the new growth.  I have even covered the onions and courgettes.  Used up my reserves of carrot seeds as well.  Good job the little bu***rs don't like gooseberries as i have a good crop coming. 

So I am planning early digging and sowing of green manures in September so that frost and snow can do the rest over winter.

Just a thought "why don't slugs and snails eat weed seedlings?"  They don't touch bindweed dandelion or buttercup.

Bill

P.S. Tee Gee I hope your wish comes true.

[juju]

we have friendly hedgehogs on our allotment and lots of magpies, they devour the slugs and snails. every day when I go on the allotment I find empty snail shells and then I do a snail dance for joy. It is better for them to feast on the slugs and snails than they feast on my veggies.

[Silverleaf]

Hedgehogs don't actually like slugs and snails much and only eat them if there's nothing else around. They prefer beetles and worms and I can't blame them - slugs carry parasites which can make hedgehogs ill.

[antipodes]

Ah well, you win some you lose some. last year had the best broad beans, this year they are covered in aphids and leaf rust. garlic is rubbish (think it didn't get cold enough) and the lettuce has bolted after 3 days of hot weather. Peas didn't germinate.
BUT the tomatoes are looking good, as are the peppers, great spud harvest, courgettes already with baby fruit and the beans have come up well.

[Squash64]

We have the same problem with slugs and snails here.

All I can hear all morning on the plot is my husband swearing at them
in Italian.  (it doesn't work)

My tomatoes are doing well, especially those in the greenhouses.  I picked
my first ripe Sungold this week, very small as the first ones usually are but
even so they were delicious.



Courgettes, squash and pumpkins have only been planted out for a week
so haven't really got going yet.