Have just returned from the allotment and a whole bed of beans and peas have been eaten down to little stumps. They were netted and were fine on Saturday. Is it too late to plant some more?
x Chas
no not too late yet but you probably have a mouse problem so start them in pots and the plant out when they are wee bit bigger and less attractive to mice.
Thank you Will start some more tomorrow
x Chas
Is that mice? I'd always assumed it was birds or slugs, I'd never thought about mice.
I know you've said they're netted but this year we are suffering unprecedented destruction by woodpigeons on our site. They have eaten my sweetpeas, pot grown and planted as strong plants and everyone is having to cage seedlings. The little darlings just sit on netting and chomp through it or get underneath it. Don't underestimate them, they are very good at what they do so my money is still on them.
We have loads of pigeons also mice and rats. We also have frogs slugs and everything else so my poor plants are really up against it. Last year the butterflies ate loads of my cabbages. A farmer told me to put mothballs round this year. Still not sure if he was pulling my leg ;D ;D ;D
x Chas
with us it's pheasants that get the peas. Never got a decent crop until I completely enclosed them with wire netting. Even then you could see where it was bent with a few plants pulled up inside
Pigeons are my guess as well; I've had to net all my peas as they were being damaged. Mice usually go for the pea not the shoot.
If it's mice then you would usually see the stalk laying flat like a fallen tree and then a little hole where the blighters dig out the seed
Your fine still sowing beans... my dad always reckons he sowed his first week of June..... he thinks the modern habit of trying to get everything going early as possible is just asking for trouble with late frosts and high winds.....
Mice normally only trouble a bean if the cotyledons are still swollen, then they'll have the thing out to get to them.... down to stumps then my money is on slugs or snails.... the wet weatehr will be bringing them out, I've noticed some on mine that I'm sure are slugs so I've pelletted....
Pigeons been battering my peas so I had to net them....
chrisc
Yeep my money is on slugs first- do the necessary before you plant out. Pigeons work in packs [ I've just watched 4 doing my place over.....]
Mothballs work for moles. I drop them down the runs but don't think they'll have any effect on caterpillars. I rely on net and then zap the ones that get thru... ;)