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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Happy Gardening 2014!
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Does anyone every see anything from Chelsea that you could actually do?
I saw some florist chappy on yesterday's show strapping a bunch of carrots and a globe artichoke to a wicker box. Does that count?
It's fun to see the different styles of gardens, but all that effort and airfreighting and forklifting and hothousing seems like an awful lot of bother.
*whispers* In other news, we have pak choi and radish seedling springing up in the raised beds. Yeah! Quiet, slugs have ears... ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
I'm watching Chelsea too. I'm sure that puts me at least halfway to being an expert gardener. Benedict Cumberbatch and his mum were a nice bonus.
I had an unsuccessful foray into vegetables last year (potatoes that didn't and tomatoes that rotted) but this year I'm trying again with potatoes in the ground rather than in a growing tub, purple sprouting broccoli donated by a friend, courgettes, and some outdoor cucumbers currently being brought on by a friend in his greenhouse. Also three tepees of sweet peas.
Nen - aspiring horticulturalist.
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
Posts: 1289 | Registered: May 2011
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Is there a homemade mixture I can use to prolong the life of cut flowers? My peonies and rhododendrons will produce huge numbers of flowers in the next week or two, and I want to cut some and bring them indoors.
Professional florists have those little packets of stuff they give you when you buy flowers. Does anyone know what is in them?
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Kyzyl
Ship's dog
# 374
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Is there a homemade mixture I can use to prolong the life of cut flowers? My peonies and rhododendrons will produce huge numbers of flowers in the next week or two, and I want to cut some and bring them indoors.
Professional florists have those little packets of stuff they give you when you buy flowers. Does anyone know what is in them?
Moo
Moo, I've had good luck with just a lemon-lime full sugar soda (any brand, even generic house brands). Mix in about a quarter can to a quart of water. I think it is more than just the sugar as most sodas have quite a mix of stuff. I've also heard that stomach tablets work (not sure if I can name brands, but the ones that had a Speedy character as an advertisement) but I've not tried that.
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I need a quote.
Posts: 668 | From: Wapasha's Prairie | Registered: Jun 2001
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
Spring evenings - sitting on the grass in the sunshine, picking caterpillars off the gooseberry bushes.........
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Kyzyl
Ship's dog
# 374
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Posted
We've had rain and cool temps for a few weeks now but today is promising 80F. My pots are ready for the herbs and tomatoes, I just need to buy the plants, probably today. I do everything in large containers, I have no room for an in ground garden. My dill experiment from last fall has worked, I have seedlings coming up in that container! I have a bumper crop of rhubarb, way too much for me so I've opened harvest to anyone in the neighborhood.
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I need a quote.
Posts: 668 | From: Wapasha's Prairie | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
OK. Black plastic sheeting to smother a rapidly growing area of weeds that I can't currently get around to, or garden fabric that lets the rain and air in?
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Eight to twelve layers of newspaper, weighted down (in an ideal world, by mulch or grass clippings, so as to look a bit better). Wet it down.
Why? a) kills the weeds and any grass REAL GOOD. b) lets rain through all right, but not sun to allow weed seeds to sprout. c) you don't have to pull it off again when you want to plant--just dig holes through the newspaper, whatever of it remains--it will decompose into the soil.
We did this in several large areas and it worked like a charm.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Or brown cardboard boxes can be used the same way.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Kyzyl
Ship's dog
# 374
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Posted
I've heard that you should only use the B&W sections of a newspaper, not any color pages, due to the content of the ink. If your paper uses soy-based inks this may not be an issue.
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I need a quote.
Posts: 668 | From: Wapasha's Prairie | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Well, I don't have any newspapers or cardboard boxes (which would get nibbled by creatures pretty quickly anyway), so I'll probably just go round to one of those shops with a gardening section and get some black plastic sheeting.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
if you're really trying to get rid of weeds, don't get the breathable kind. Though the one time we tried plastic at all it did absolutely nothing to change matters underneath. ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif) Can't imagine why, weeds are tough little buggers I guess.
I've heard of something called "solarizing" the ground to kill off weeds/weed seeds, which uses clear plastic, but I haven't tried it personally and you'd need to google it if interested.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
If you are going down the newspaper route, I can't imagine that any of them still use old-fashioned inks, I'm sure they are all veg based these days. That's certainly the impression that the Centre for Alternative Technology give.
Personally, I went for black sheeting (helped by being available from the allotment society). It works like a dream for most things (including Satan's Own couch grass), but there are a few caveats.
Whatever you have around its edges will have roots underneath it, so when you take it off to dig a foot or eighteen inches round the edge is likely to be very hard. Unless you have rising ground water, the rest shouldn't be any wetter or dryer than when you put it down.
The edges are irresistible to toads, so take them up with care as you'll probably find a good collection of would-be princes under there - but they do eat slugs, which can't be bad.
Make sure you peg/weigh it down thoroughly, and get it as flat as possible before you do so. There's nothing worse than finding it's half way across the next county instead of doing its thang on your plot, or the light has got under an edge, [Yul Brynner]etc etc etc [/Yul Brynner].
It should kill everything else off (even the aforementioned couch) if you leave it long enough, but the deep perennial roots of thistles and bindweed will keep growing underneath it, and you may find huge piles of white bindweed when you lift it. On the other hand, if you are happy with/allowed chemicals, anything you put on it will splat it post-haste, and it's obvious where you have to go to dig it out.
I think that's it - when you've done, roll it up as there'll always be someone else grateful for it!
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Fantastic. Black sheeting it will be, and I'll try to get some tonight before the yellow weather warning from the Met Office kicks in.
(Whatever yellow weather is like. I instinctively visualize dust storms, but perhaps that's unlikely.)
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Today. I have weeded. The path. The long border. The paving round the shed. A patch about the size of a single bed formerly the domain of couch grass, thistle, buttercup and various other tough-as-buggery weeds. I have fetched home bedding plants and trimmed the hedge and schlepped sacks of garden waste up flights of stairs. I have gone through 4 lots of gloves, I have a blister, sunburn and bruised and sandpapery fingers.
It is forecast to rain tomorrow and it had better.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I'm afraid I have slept through the opportunity to visit the garden centre for more little veggie plants. But it is now overcast, and cool, so I could decapitate last year's parsnips, which did nothing useful then but have now produced enormous angelica like growths. These must be cleared an the absence of sunlight and fully protected, as they can do the sort of thing that giant hogweed can. Who knew.* with the rain due, it probably is no good to respray the ground elder for the third time.
*On second thoughts, last night's lateness is still active, and I'm just not up to it. Or building the arch for the Albertine rose.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I managed to find enough energy to assemble parts of the arch - it's much bigger than I thought. I did it in my living room, in three bits, up, arch and down. My living room is on the first floor, but has, for some reason known only to the original much-lauded architects, a French window (with a grille across the bottom for safety). So I've let the bits down to the patio ready for full assembly when the storm is over.
One last problem is one nut and bolt assembly for fixing the base to the ground, where the nut will not do anything but get crossthreaded. I might have to get a replacement and use a hacksaw. Or fix it another way.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
It seems to be impossible to buy black plastic sheeting. I've settled for a green tarpaulin instead. No doubt in a few weeks the underside will be almost completely encrusted with snails, but let's hope it keeps the weeds down for a bit.
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
I have fetched home bedding plants and trimmed the hedge and schlepped sacks of garden waste up flights of stairs. I have gone through 4 lots of gloves, I have a blister, sunburn and bruised and sandpapery fingers.
Yikes. A 4-gloves problem.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
The gardener Bob Flowerdew uses old carpet. It doesn't look good, but does the job.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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monkeylizard
Ship's scurvy
# 952
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Posted
1 month in and I think it's going well. A rabbit tried to eat a couple of my cabbages, but they seem to be recovering OK. I added netting to keep it and the birds out. So far I have harvested mesclun, spinach, arugula, a few radishes and a very little bit of baby kale and black-seeded simpson lettuce.
I'm trying to keep a good log of what I do and when I do it so I can do the right things again next year without making the same mistakes, like planting waaaaaay too many seeds of certain items. I'm probably not staggering my planting dates very well either, so I'll end up flush with certain crops all at once without many others. I'll work on that next year.
ETA: please don't look at the black weed-block sticking out around the edges. I haven't gotten around to burning that off yet. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
[ 21. May 2014, 21:03: Message edited by: monkeylizard ]
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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. ~ Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903)
Posts: 2201 | From: Music City, USA | Registered: Jul 2001
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
The gardener Bob Flowerdew uses old carpet. It doesn't look good, but does the job.
Just make sure if you do that it's hessian backed, not nylon, or you'll be picking up nylon strands for the next millennium. Been there, done that... and the miserable git didn't even do anything with the plot once we'd cleared her fecking old carpet off...
I've used old tarps myself, so I'm sure it'll do the job. Perhaps not quite as good as black plastic but a decent second. Think of all the bun you can have squashing snails with feeling, or maybe you can try escargot recipes?
Monkeylizard... I'm impressed!
AG
[ 21. May 2014, 21:17: Message edited by: Sandemaniac ]
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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cattyish
Wuss in Boots
# 7829
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Posted
It looks amazing monkeylizard!
Cattyish, green fingered with envy.
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...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posts: 1794 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jul 2004
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
All this rain is doing wonders for my veggie patch.
Nen - dodging the showers.
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
Posts: 1289 | Registered: May 2011
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
The veggie patch is looking a bit better. After an abortive trip to a nearby garden centre, I've been able to establish a new raised bed. I had to pull up three salad onions which were in the area, and then fell a cluster of parsnips which had bolted. It was hard to believe that those measly roots that weren't worth harvesting could produce great trunks which resisted the long handled shears. The tops, and some similarly rubbish swedes, and the local bunch of creeping buttercup, and last weeks collection of forgetmenot, and a heap of variegated ivy leaves, and the contents of the disgusting kitchen waste bucket that sits outside the back door formed the base layer. Then there was a cardboard packing box left by the previous owner, and a topping of left over seed and potting compost and bagged topsoil. A good soaking, in case it doesn't rain soon. More topsoil tomorrow - I couldn't reach the rest of the bags because they are the other side of the car in the garage. It looks a lot neater up there.
I have another frame, but it's too big for the space. I don't want to saw it down, in case I want to use it as a higher level on today's bed.
I'm not quite sure what I'm going to put in there. Not the carrots or the leeks. Not quite the right place for the legumes, but possible.
While sloshing water about I found a toad in a bucket. Very still looking, and an idiot to climb up there (though skillful to manage it) when there is a shallow tray full of water at ground level so that any amphibians avoid drowning. I slid it out into the London Pride. When I looked again, it had gone, so probably not dead.
The ground elder is also still alive.
There are peaches on the tree, despite the curl. No plums, though. No blossom. Strawberries are coming, and blackberries.
[ 23. May 2014, 19:16: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
The toad is still alive. I disturbed it when putting the rose arch up. This is taller than I expected, and has flimsy fixings. I shall have to find a sturdier fastening at ground level. The rose is already long enough to reach the top, and smells delicious. I moved my tomato house and trimmed back the wilder reaches of the Virginia Creeper, the trimmings to be the base of the next bed. Put more soil in the raised bed, and will smooth it with a plank before putting in the veggies I bought yesterday.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
The flower garden is looking lovely at the moment, with roses, aquilegia, lupins and foxgloves in bloom. The hollyhocks are sprouting well and look good for July.
Down in the fruit-and-veg patch there's a good crop of gooseberries coming and the strawberries have set fruit. The autumn raspberries are growing well but will probably get knocked about by the local fox cubs before they fruit (Grrrrrr we hates foxes). The plum trees had a bad insect attack at the start of the season but seem to be recovering now, although I think I'm not going to get many fruit.
I don't know what's happened to the carrots. The seeds sprouted, but all sign of the plants has now been lost. Slugs? Pigeons? No idea what's gone on there. A gardening mystery.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Finally managed to get round to the allotment - it's been raining every day this week except today - and found half of it under water and the rest covered in weeds and grass.
I'm going to ask the council if they'll split the plot; it's too big for one person and I seem to spend almost all my time there hacking out weeds in a forlorn effort to try to keep some semblance of control over it and not getting time to plant anything. Someone else can have the waterlogged half with the bindweed (and the rhubarb, but I can always plant some more in the other half).
[ 30. May 2014, 19:17: Message edited by: Ariel ]
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Chamois, I found a good anti-slug stuff last year, can't offhand remember the name, something like Slugstop. It is daggy bits of sheep's wool - and you wouldn't want it in the house, even neatly packaged - and they don't like crawling over it when you put it round your plants. Then it breaks down as compost.
Mind you, loads of my stuff disappeared last year, just pined away, dwined away, dwindled down and left me. (Kipling.) But what didn't had no damage. Sounds a bit illogical, but the fading stuff showed no signs of being eaten as the process happened.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Rosa Winkel
Saint Anger round my neck
# 11424
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Posted
I've been using egg shell for two years against slugs and snails, and it's been working quite well. Saying that, a few small slugs made their way through the gaps to the ruccola; I discovered that today.
A week sick and then away in Italy in a rainy and then sunny time was excellent for the grass and weeds; a big part of my allotment is now longer than knee high. The allotment officials (the somewhat controversial allotment officials, accused of swearing at an allotment keeper and damaging someone's plants) were on the prowl today, and the word 'jungle' was hissed at me as they looked at the aforementioned grass/weeds.
Still, I'm the only one there who is there regularly while working and having a baby, and it'll get done.
Already ate radishes, spinach, ruccola and rhubarb this year. Just concerned that not a single flower has come from the seeds (borrage, aster, pink poppy, marigolds among others)and my plans to set off cauliflowers, broccoli, celeriac and leeks at home have left me with about five limp looking green things.
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The Disability and Jesus "Locked out for Lent" project
Posts: 3271 | From: Wrocław | Registered: May 2006
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daisydaisy
Shipmate
# 12167
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Posted
I use eggshell too - it seems fine as long as there isn't a gap.
Today I went out with shopping list that said "sprout seedlings" and really, really meant to be good. But what can a gardener do when helping at the church plant sale full of tempting goodies So I now have rather a lot of planting to do.... the allotment is getting most of it - several unusual varieties of tomatoes and lots of perennial flowers. It seems sprouts are no longer available, so I've got cabbage seedlings instead.
Posts: 3184 | From: southern uk | Registered: Dec 2006
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
The council have agreed to let me split my allotment. I shall now have a quarter plot, which should be much more manageable.
I've already started transferring my plants over to the half I'm going to keep and feel a lot better about it.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
rhododendron people? help!
I'm used to zone 1, so no rhody experience. I've moved back down to the "tropics" (2/3) and have been given a ginormous perennial garden to caretake for my mother. mostly, it's going well.
but! when she bought the house (13 year ago) there was a large rhododendron bush in the front yard (uphill, mostly shade, under a very mature western hemlock) that did well. years ago, a moose ate a bunch of it and trampled the rest. She thought it was dead, but transplanted to corpse to the back yard (downhill, partial sun, protected from wind) out of hope. after two years of being a large stick, it leafed out and put on new growth and yay all is well!
only - it's been in it's new spot for 5 or six years now, and while it greens up, it doesn't bloom and it's growth is extremely slow. It's obviously unhappy.
Should I move it back into the full shade? does it need some oomphing done to the soil? What can make this poor mistreated rhody get over it's PTSD and enjoy life again?
we are boreal rainforest with a healthy precip level and well-draining soil, though it's not terribly nutrient dense. the rhody gets regular compost tea, annual compost and seaweed mulch.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
What color are the leaves--normal green or yellowy? And do you know if the soil in the new area is acid or alkaline?
[ 03. June 2014, 08:52: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Tree Officer has just been to look at a very sickly Laurus nobilis (Bay Laurel) and has agreed that much is already dead and the rest dying so it can be taken down.
Feeling slightly guilty because its a tree I've never liked but in a small garden a multi-trunk (5) large evergreen tight to a wall and less than 3 feet from a building isn't a good idea.
Now all I need to decide is whether I do the work myself or get in a tree surgeon.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
What color are the leaves--normal green or yellowy? And do you know if the soil in the new area is acid or alkaline?
normal green. I don't know about the soil, but we tend towards acidic generally around here. I can check, but it will be a few days.
it puts on maybe 2-3 inches of new growth a year.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I found the molluscs had found the trays of brassicas I bought a week ago and demolished them (though not their accompanying carrots etc), so I moved the trays up on top of the water stores. The replacements -£10 worth - are staying indoors until I can put them out with the Slug Gone (the daggy stuff). The bags of other stuff I have now hung on cup hooks I have screwed in to the support parts of the shed, off the ground, with the timber being rough. The things have also eaten through a hyacinth bulb waiting to be put in! I have now sprinkled organic pellets around the place, as well. My friend thinks I'm awful. He's almost Jain about this sort of thing.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I think I need some industrial-strength anti-slug and snail repellent. They have munched through almost everything. That includes my lovely little French marigolds, the rhubarb leaves, and much of the spinach. They were about to start on the thyme when I uprooted the plant and moved it elsewhere.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Yangtze
Shipmate
# 4965
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Posted
Oh they are vile vile creatures aren't they.
I went out the other afternoon and picked handfuls of snails and flung them into salty soapy water. And then I started slug hunting. And the bucket was getting full.
But then I left out some beer traps. Oh my, within minutes of dusk they were heaving with writhing slimy black things, with more making bee line (slug lines) straight at 'em. I swear in 24 hours I must have collected over 200 of the blighters. And I don't even have a very big garden.
Only thing is now I have a bucket of soapy salty water full of dead slugs and snails. What should I do with it?
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Arthur & Henry Ethical Shirts for Men
organic cotton, fair trade cotton, linen
Sometimes I wonder What's for Afters?
Posts: 2022 | From: the smallest town in England | Registered: Sep 2003
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Starbug
Shipmate
# 15917
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Posted
I'm growing Duke of York potatoes in a special growpot. They are taunting me - the buds have appeared, but only one solitary flower has opened. I'm longing to have a furtle around, but daren't yet.
This is the first time I've ever grown potatoes, so it's a mixture of exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.
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“Oh the pointing again. They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do? Assemble a cabinet at them?” ― The Day of the Doctor
Posts: 1189 | From: West of the New Forest | Registered: Sep 2010
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Sometimes potatoes flower, sometimes they don't. It doesn't seem, IME, to correlate to the amount of actual spudlet.
But hold off the furtling until you see the foliage begin to yellow and die back. Pull out the stem and then conduct an archaeological dig in a two or three foot radius (taking the earth off in shallow, lateral scoops, rather stabbing down). One year, when the fist half of the growing season was extremely wet, and the second warm and dry, I found that the tubers nearest the stem had mostly rotted, but a later flush further out were fine - but very new potato in their thinness of skin.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Back when I was a child, and into my teens, we used to buy Horlicks in large commercial sized jars. Once finished, they would be taken into the garden, full of brine - no detergent, presumably they wet easily anyway - and dotted about among the veggies and the flower borders, so whenever Mum came across the nasty things, into the pot they went. I never found out what happened in the end though. Can't put them on the compost heap because of the salt, or tip them down the drain. We children tried to ignore them because of the yeurch factor. I suppose you could flush them away. I suppose a proper sewage works could process them. A puzzle.
I've tried beer traps - never seemed to work. I went to a lot of trouble to find beer which was not specialist stuff like Bishop's Finger or Spitfire or whatever, but maybe they just didn't like the really cheap supermarket stuff (and what were they doing selling it for 45p a can?)
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
I've got the beer traps out at the moment, which seem to be working here. Maybe these slugs are slightly more thirsty...
Hoping for a little crop of blueberries this year after re-potting. I can see the green berries ready for ripening.
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I, meanwhile, shall be going out and cursing them in Anglo-Saxon. See the inquire within thread where I went off on a tangent.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Similar problem with slugs here - loads and loads of things just munched off, and the weather won't let stuff get established before it dries it out/rots it off. Coupled with a late start after the winter floods, I'm currently desperately trying to get everything I can in before we go on holiday next weekend so it can take its chances in the ground.
I've just ordered some Nemaslug and am going to try keeping a bucket brewing somewhere if I can find a cheap nappy-type bucket.
A very frustrated AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I will recommend Slug Gone, the daggy sheep stuff again - they really avoid it. No use on things sitting around temporarily though.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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monkeylizard
Ship's scurvy
# 952
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Posted
Cutworms and cabbage worms decided they like the taste of my cabbage and kohlrabi. They ate through a few leaves before I noticed. I've removed and squished a couple dozen of each over the past 3 days. I found 2 more this morning in a cabbage. Hopefully I've gotten ahead of them.
I'm trying to keep my vegetable garden as organic as possible, but those dirty little rat-bastards make me want to go down to the farm supply store and get something with a minimum of 5 unpronounceable ingredients.
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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. ~ Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903)
Posts: 2201 | From: Music City, USA | Registered: Jul 2001
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
Originally posted by Yangtze:
quote:
Only thing is now I have a bucket of soapy salty water full of dead slugs and snails. What should I do with it?
Flush it all down the loo.
Same story here, my poor garden is teeming with slugs and snails. I've also got sawfly caterpillars on the gooseberries (happens every year) and lavender beetles on the lavender hedge (never had that before).
The fox cubs dug up all my courgette seedlings and are now busily biting off the ripening strawberries and playing with them. Dratted destructive animals.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I've just plucked up enough energy to get the Tomtato grafted plants into containers and a plastic growhouse. One of the bags of compost, which had been opened, was serving as home to a cluster of snails, now over in a patch of privet with rotting leaves on the ground.
[ 06. June 2014, 18:17: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Sparrow
Shipmate
# 2458
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Posted
I've been having a war on my slugs and snails since yesterday. My first ever beer trap, set out last night, yielded six this morning. This afternoon I went round with a pot of brine and turned up all the loose stones and overhanging plants, and must have drowned another 50 or so.
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For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life,nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Posts: 3149 | From: Bottom right hand corner of the UK | Registered: Mar 2002
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I've just scattered pellets around with reckless abandon round the tomatoes. Did I mention that I have put cup hooks up the side of the shed and hung the garden centre bags with the plant strips in on them? I know the snails can get up to the top windows of the house, but I don't think they will be that keen on rough timber.
I have also bought some scouring pads with copper coating on to put round flower pots. They aren't actually copper, as they rust, and they failed to protect some parsley.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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