I have just discovered that the cucumber, courgette & pumpkin plants I planted out last w/end have all been eaten during the course of the week in my allotment. Because of the rain this week in London & personal commitments I haven't had a chance to get to allotment during past week in evenings so was gutted to find the damage. Even the spares in pots have been eaten!
I nurtured these from seeds so will have to see if I can find plants to buy to replace courgette & pumpkins (managed to buy some cucumber plants from local market today) but most online catalogue sites seem to be out of stock. Does anyone know of anywhere I might be able to order these online? Short of shops or markets in my area selling plants so online seems best bet. Having such a problem with slugs & snails at the moment >:(
Thanks
This is the first year I've had slugs eating my courgettes- I thought they were fairly slug-proof. :(
Try your local freecycle or freegle group- someone will probably have some spare, and they will probably have been treated better than the ones you might pay for!
can recomend http://www.organicplants.co.uk/
There currently packing all the late mat stuff now and last ordering was this week but i think if you contact them you might get lucky http://www.organicplants.co.uk/acatalog/Late_May_Collections.html
You still have time to res ow if you are quick. XX Jeannine
That's great news Jeannine I've had really bad germination this year & thought I was only going to have 4 squash plants instead of the 20 I was hoping for.....where the weather has been so awful here, more like Autumn than Summer, I had convinced myself it was too late to resow x Jane
Do them in 3 inch pots inside and give them light, they should be OK to go out after a while. no good for winter squash but you sghpould be fine with corgettes. I haven't done moine yet!!
XX Jeannine
Thanks Jeannine, it was Winter squash I was hoping to grow lots of this year...sigh :(
I hadn't planned on doing any courgettes as fancied a year off from them ,lol, but think I will sow 2 of the white Volunteer seeds I still have from last year & see what happens x jane
They have them for sale on ebay :)
Where abouts are you Sue??
Ditto... if near swindon I can spare a couple of edible pumpkin plants...
Try car bootys, you can often get last minute plants ,had to do this myself as everything is getting eatin by birds rabbits slugs ect ,ask your lotty pals if there is any going spare ;D
Louise Stella, I'm in SE London, Bermondsey/Southwark area.
Thanks for the suggestions from everyone else. I'll have a go at planting some new courgette seeds. I was left with 1 pumpkin plant which the slugs/snails didn't eat so will have to hope it produces some pumpkins!
If I had some spare I would give you some as I am SE London too (Forest Hill) but I haven't had a great deal of luck - poor germination, slugs and some courgettes that just have moved an inch since I planted them out mean I have had to resow..
My local garden centres generally have some in but I am too mean to buy plants unless I have to!!
Sue - plant now and there is still loads of time for them to grow... if we have a summer!!
Agree with Jeannine - start again and fast. If you would let us know what winter squash you were planning to grow, we could put our heads together and advise which is the fastest to mature.
Courgettes are definitely no problems, winter squashes need more time. Too late for butternut possibly (although you are in a nice warm area so perhaps not too late). Buttercup (and its variants for example F1 BonBon) definitely still in time, acorn squashes fine (but they don't store quite so well), Crown Prince and other crowns you should be ok for too.
I collect all my eggshells, crush and sprinkle generously around newly planted squash plants to deter the dreaded slugs. If you can lay your hands on very large water bottles or other suitable cloches for individual plants for example cut off wine fermenting bottles or watercooler bottles or fork out for the commercial product Victorian Bell Cloche, then you should have no further slug problems until the plants are large enough to withstand them.
Good luck :)
edit - forgot to say: there will possibly be fewer fruits on your wintersquashes because there isn't so much growing time now. Have you thought about sowing a few more plants to compensate? If you have the space, grow more plants ;D
Festival squash is very fast, generally a month or so before most of the older varieties and nearly two month before Butternuts....they store well too
I lost all of my Hercules butternut and Waltham so have sown some more today. Nowt to lose.
Sue you are not alone. Last year I had great success with direct sowing, this year it's been a bit of a flop. I have realised that something has been eating the squash seeds! So out of about 12 sown, only 3 plants have appeared... Well, as we get a longer summer, I will try a last ditch indoor sowing this week, of at least another 3, and see. The same happened with cucumber and courgette, I have 3 out of 5 courgettes and only 2 out of 5 cukes... I will also sow again and see what happens. If it brightens up, they may catch up - one of my neighbours already has courgettes on his plant!!! :o