After a six week wait my beans were just popping up :toothy10: & in just 1 night the mice have had them all. :BangHead:
The squirrels like mine. I have waited in the past for them to emerge only to find nothing but a slight dip and a few scratch marks. Now each of my broad bean seeds gets a bottle cloche.
I have more or less given up on Autumn sown ones because so many things think I have provided a free meal. I sympathise with your frustration. February is not far away so you can get some more going.
Hi Tel.
try soaking the beans in parrafin,will mice will leave well alone
Quote from: gardentg44 on December 22, 2012, 10:03:13
Hi Tel.
try soaking the beans in parrafin,will mice will leave well alone
I will be doing that this year (or next) I February i lost most of mine and they were in pots in the greenhouse. Caught 11 of the little pests in all. I do smile thinking of them taking a bite of a paraffin soaked bean and spitting it out
Quote from: gardentg44 on December 22, 2012, 10:03:13
Hi Tel.
try soaking the beans in parrafin,will mice will leave well alone
Thanks i will try that
Does the parafin stop the critters chewing the growing tip once they have germinated?
Quote from: Digeroo on December 26, 2012, 10:01:38
Does the parafin stop the critters chewing the growing tip once they have germinated?
No, it just protects the seed, so not really worth while doing it. I don`t see the point in sowing broad beans in the autumn anyway as you gain very little. Much better to sow the seeds in pots in the early spring and plant them out when conditions are better. :icon_thumleft:
The paraffin to use is not the stuff that you burn in a heater, it liquid paraffin from a chemist. It also works on peas.
Though I must confess I have never tried used "burning" paraffin!
Quote from: planetearth on January 01, 2013, 08:05:22
The paraffin to use is not the stuff that you burn in a heater, it liquid paraffin from a chemist. It also works on peas.
Though I must confess I have never tried used "burning" paraffin!
"Burning" paraffin may well work well as long as you are nearby to set light to it when the micky-mice appear.
(That's not a serious suggestion RSPCA please note!!)
Might not do the seeds a great deal of good though. :tongue3:
As someone else has said: starting beans off in pots in a greenhouse or cold-frame (free of mice) is a pretty good bet for success.
Autumn sown are a gamble - can look wonderfully advanced then the weather changes and knocks them for six.
When successful you gain a coulple of weeks over early spring sown.
Good luck either way.
Actually I think the 'original' recipe was swill the beans in [burning] paraffin.
I've done it the past also scattered solid meths in the rows. That didn't work it has to be the smelly stuff on the seeds. Got that from the 'father' of organic growing whose name escapes me now, :drunken_smilie:[don't get old it gets embarrassing..]
My father used to use paraffin (the burning kind) and red lead. Not recommended! I'd have thought the smell of the paraffin alone would be enough. I once had my fuel spill inside my rucksack when I was walking in Scotland. The taste of my food was indescribable (I was ten miles at least from a shop, twenty unless there was one at Rannoch, which there probably wasn't) so there was nothing else. My sleeping bag was soaked, and by the following morning, I was itchin all over from the stuff.
Digeroo, not convinced they bother with the growing tip, on my potted ones lasy year they burrowed down & ate the seed the tops were still there but had withered away by the evening.
Have to agree that squirrels only eat the beans. I have watched them do it. So far they have not managed to remove well dug in plastic bottles, but they have no problems with wire or plastic netting. Not personally keen on the paraffin.
"Burning" paraffin may well work well as long as you are nearby to set light to it when the micky-mice appear. (That's not a serious suggestion RSPCA please note!!).
And well you might seek dispensation, the RSPCA seem to have been hijacked. More and more it looks like they have been infiltrated by class warrior political activists who are obsessed with foxes and badgers - rats and mice next!
No more from me in their collection tin, there are plenty other charities to choose from!
Quote from: planetearth on January 09, 2013, 10:09:01
And well you might seek dispensation, the RSPCA seem to have been hijacked. More and more it looks like they have been infiltrated by class warrior political activists who are obsessed with foxes and badgers - rats and mice next!
No more from me in their collection tin, there are plenty other charities to choose from!
Oooh that's good. Do you think they would like a few more foxes for their collection? I've plenty and would so like to see the back of the mess they leave all over the garden and paths :angry4:
Broadbeans..... mine are in the packet. Soon they will be in pots in a cold greenhouse minus mouses... if necessary the cat can sit in there as guard for a while. :tongue3:
Mice and voles find the beans by smell, so I think that the paraffin smell disguises the location of the beans.
Quote from: realfood on January 30, 2013, 16:39:52
Mice and voles find the beans by smell, so I think that the paraffin smell disguises the location of the beans.
That makes a good deal of sense but my 97 year old father believes after having sunk their teeth into one and not liked the taste they *toddle off. (*not quite my father's choice of words)
Quoteif necessary the cat can sit in there as guard for a while.
Sounds good to me, I seem to have a cat in the garden. It is here most days, not sure who it belongs to. Lets hope it know the score.
I used to get good results using paraffin (the stinkier the better) but the last few years it was worse than useless - I think the hard winters made the rodents so hungry they were using the smell of the paraffin to find the seeds!
I even used even stinkier white spirit one year but that winter was even harder and it made no difference. I tried a mulch of broken windscreen the same year but it made only a slight difference :BangHead:
I don't think liquid paraffin from the chemist would put mice off eating them - it's the same stuff they use on dried sultanas to put a shine on them - you can't taste it.
But it might make them harder to find - maybe the 'seal' it puts on the seed reduces the scent - just a guess.
Talking of other rodent damage - I usually find the f@g-end of the broad bean harvest makes a good crop of dried beans (for next year) - but when I plant the better-tasting green-seeded types I find that any odd pods I leave after the main harvest simply disappear.
I'm sure this is gourmet rodents - though I'm only 90% sure they all have four legs... :BangHead: :BangHead:
Cheers.
start in pots and then plant out. I found Witkiem Manika excellant and never got black fly. Also Aquadulce Claudia was similar.
I put my aquadulce seeds into root trainers, outside in racks at home, in january this year and have got amazingly good strong plants to put out in march. So far so good, I lost most in the past by putting into the allotment in late autumn in years past. Have sown witkiem m last few years in early spring and good results but I wanted an earlier start. WM is a nice bean
Quote from: strawberry1 on February 27, 2013, 08:52:24
I put my aquadulce seeds into root trainers, outside in racks at home, in january this year and have got amazingly good strong plants to put out in march.
Rootrainers are a good idea but I can't get my head around why they charge so much for something so fragile.
There are various alternatives but the easiest for large seeds is to make up a roll - I have done this many times with small oca or to make seed potatoes go further by using smaller bits - it works a treat but I didn't think of using it for broad beans until your post - they are about the same size as some of the oca or spud bits I've used in the past.
Basically it's the same as the roll of cuttings method - you take a sheet of plastic a metre or so long and wide enough to give twice the depth that you want for your "Rolltrainer" - fold it widthways and make a line of holes down the closed edge - I use scissors and make little snips.
You open it out and put a layer of compost to cover one half between the holes and the edge - about 2-4cm deep - put your seeds or tubers in at the right distance from the edge and at least 10cm apart, fold it over and roll it up.
It's nice if you can find a big plastic pot that the roll will fit in. but otherwise it needs to be taped or tied up. Brown sticky packing tape is surprisingly waterproof for a whole season once it is stuck firmly to clean dry plastic (or itself).
You just unroll when you want the plants, lift them out and transplant.
It's well worth including straight sticks (prunings) as you roll it up to squash the sides together at intervals to make pockets that will tend to stop the roots getting intertwined.
The more alternatives we can find the more pressure on rootrainers to use better materials - like the throwaway trays my sausages come in - which are about 10x more durable than what they charge £££ for...
Cheers.
I use the inside of toilet rolls works a treat and they break down in the soil when you plant them out :icon_cheers:
Quote from: Vinlander on March 03, 2013, 15:22:31
Quote from: strawberry1 on February 27, 2013, 08:52:24
I put my aquadulce seeds into root trainers, outside in racks at home, in january this year and have got amazingly good strong plants to put out in march.
Rootrainers are a good idea but I can't get my head around why they charge so much for something so fragile.
There are various alternatives
I couldn't agree more with you. Heck of a price for something we managed without before someone started to market them. Designed more for profit than of necessity. A nice play-thing in my opinion. (Apologies to people who love them)
I plonk things into pots and let the roots twirl.... transplant and shake them (roots) gently out. Seems to work.
If I have the time long paper-pots are so easy to make using old newspapers.
As for mice - use a newspaper they don't want to read! :tongue3:
I have had no trouble with mice (so far) - my broad beans are germinated where the mice don't roam and planted out when a few inches high by which time there are other things for mice to pay with.
Our friendly foxes like the mice :laughing7:
I suffered this last year, so this year I'm grinng them on in the conservatory at home, and when they're about 6" - 12" I'll plant them out. Mice don't seem interested in the more mature plants.
Peter