God I love growing our own

[pargyle]

My sweetcorn failed as well and I'm off today to see if there any plants left in the garden centre. Father in law is blaming peat free compost for all the gardening woes at the moment. I think it is a lot harder to maintain the right sort of moisture for germination. I did try some directly to the ground which lasted all of about 6 hours before something had a sweetcorn snack overnight!

Yes ... I''m trying to get used to peat free compost - it's difficult to judge the watering, the surface looks dry but the moisture levels further down are high - By comparison I made a whole load of my own seed compost up - very finely seived compost from my own bins, finely seived leaf mould, finely seived sandy soil that I bought in and vermiculite. This seems to have been better as the squash seeds I put in have 100% germinated in that mix. It has a bit of a downside as any weed seeds (or tomato seeds - which appear to survive anything up to a nuclear explosion) also germinate. I don't think my compost heaps get sufficiently hot to kill everything off ... so I end up having to pick the weed seedlings out as they geriminate- they tend to be obvious but it's a pain picking them out.

I read somewhere that you can microwave bags of it to kill off the seeds but I'm not sure whether it will damage the structure as well - and I'm not sure 'er indoors would be immensely impressed.

 

[pargyle]

The only slugs we are really bothered with are the little ones that live in the soil and eat potatoes. So all of them now go in bags. We reorganised the strawberry bed this winter. all the plants were removed and sorted. Weed roots removed, replanted in large pots with the bottoms out and put back in the starwberry bed. The plants are kept off the soil which can be easily hoed.

I grow all my strawberries in pots these days ... it doesn't stop the slugs and snails but it makes them easier to spot the little beggars when I do my nightime slug and snail patrol ...

 

[enrico]

Another 2 kg today, picked it clean yesterday

 

[Erichalfbee]

Another 2 kg today, picked it clean yesterday

How many plants do you have?

 

[enrico]

How many plants do you have?

I have no idea. We took it over when we bought the house seven years ago. The bed is 7m by 1.5 m. I think there were two rows down the length of it originally. But they come up all over now, even spread I to the grass round the bed. They are all male plants so no berries. All we do is add manure every year or two, keep the weeds down, and pick it. In the summer they grow into seven foot beasts that fill the bed and we have to role round the outside to stop them falling over.
It was the main reason my wife wanted this house

 

[fian]

I grow all my strawberries in pots these days ... it doesn't stop the slugs and snails but it makes them easier to spot the little beggars when I do my nightime slug and snail patrol ...

The best way to catch snails is to "offer them home." If you have a large, curved piece of ceramic material, just soak it in water and place it in the evening near the snails' preferred crop. They will take refuge for the night, so the next morning you come back early and you will see how your annoying tenants sleep peacefully, so you only have to take that piece of ceramic to the furthest point of your garden.

 

[pargyle]

The best way to catch snails is to "offer them home." If you have a large, curved piece of ceramic material, just soak it in water and place it in the evening near the snails' preferred crop. They will take refuge for the night, so the next morning you come back early and you will see how your annoying tenants sleep peacefully, so you only have to take that piece of ceramic to the furthest point of your garden.

Or perhaps over the fence into next door's jungle where they all seem to come from !

 

[enrico]

Or perhaps over the fence into next door's jungle where they all seem to come from !

I assist mine to go and play in the road

 

[fian]

There is another option, become a heliciculturist and set up a snail farm (there are people willing to eat them, in Spain the average is 400 grams per person per year)

 

[pargyle]

I assist mine to go and play in the road

At least you give them a chance !

 

[pargyle]

It would appear that I need to invent a snail hurling catapult ... another nice little earner !

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-homing-instinct-overcome-move-20-metres-away

 

[JamezF]

It would appear that I need to invent a snail hurling catapult ... another nice little earner !

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-homing-instinct-overcome-move-20-metres-away

I just use a trowel. I believe one of my snails now holds the world altitude record for a gastropod.

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

I just use a trowel. I believe one of my snails now holds the world altitude record for a gastropod.

James

I remember doing an experiment in school which involved marking snails and relocating them some distance away (nobody mentioned throwing ....ooops)

They come back

 

[enrico]

I remember doing an experiment in school which involved marking snails and relocating them some distance away (nobody mentioned throwing ....ooops)

They come back

Oh! I am glad you said that because I was going to mention it but wondered if it was a myth. By the time they have slithered all the way back they are starving too!

 

[rossbyjove]

I usually put mine in the airing cupboard ( in the dark) and when I see a shoot showing I put it on a warm window sill.

I bought some more and every single one has sprouted !

 

[Martimart]

I remember doing an experiment in school which involved marking snails and relocating them some distance away (nobody mentioned throwing ....ooops)

They come back

There was a program on TV they took snails from areas of 4 gardens and marked them with a coloured spot on their shells. They put them all together in a bucket and moved them to a central point and within 2 days they where all back where they started.

I

 

[Martimart]

On the grow your own front, I've got runner beans coming through in pots in the greenhouse and more sweetcorn. If I can get them in during the next week they will catch up. Pigeons ate all my sweetcorn plants and the slugs did the runner beans. Lettuce / onions / spring onions / courgettes and soft fruit all doing well. The Bee's are bing their usual selves and are just doing what they want.

 

[Moobee]

My strawberry cage is still on to of the hen run ... I need to get it down tomorrow to keep the blackbirds from scoffing them but the main problem I face is snails and slugs, the garden is rife with them. I use Nematodes in spring but it's been so wet this year that I don't think it has had any effect. I have some bags of wood ash from all the tree branches I chopped down this year and I'm thinking of scattering that around the pots that the strawberries are in to see if that discourages them. I won't use slug bait and the copper tape only works whilst it is still shiny. I have some of those slug traps that you put in the ground and fill with beer but I've never used them ... might give them a try ... never ending battle..

Wood ash and coffee grounds seem to work quite well for me. I agree though, wet spring seems to have caused a tenfold increase in the slimy buggers.

 

[Moobee]

There was a program on TV they took snails from areas of 4 gardens and marked them with a coloured spot on their shells. They put them all together in a bucket and moved them to a central point and within 2 days they where all back where they started.

I

So the ones I lobbed over the neighbours fence will return then

 

[JamezF]

I was hoping to catch up in the veggie plot a bit today having lost time to dealing with swarms, but didn't really get much done other than tidying up. After looking very bare in March, the outdoor plot is rammed full again. There's room for climbing beans and more carrots and that's about it until the early crops reach the point of being removed...

Currants and gooseberries in the closest bed with asparagus at the far end, soup peas behind in the second bed, with broad beans hiding behind them and field beans doing very well in the third bed.

First early potatoes, spring onions left over from last year in the next bed and now starting to flower, alongside sugar snap peas, brassicas (Romanesco cauliflower and calabrese mainly, with some summer cabbages) under the mesh to keep the flea beetle off -- soon to be replaced by butterfly netting. Frankenstein's Greenhouse, as yet incomplete, in the background.

More first earlies (different variety), peas for podding in the next bed with some radishes and lettuce in front of them, borage and second earlies in the next bed back and more second earlies in the next but one.

The polytunnel on the other hand is looking rather empty by comparison. I've held back on planting out the tomatoes and peppers until the outdoor lettuces are ready and the polytunnel ones can be removed. I had a lot of aphids that I believe transferred from the lettuces to the tomatoes and peppers last year, so this year I was hoping to have a clear break between them. Not sure that's going to happen though, as the tomatoes desperately need to go out. I might have a major harvest of the remaining lettuces tomorrow and then remove them with the tomatoes going in shortly afterwards. Can't really complain. We've had salad leaves all winter from here and one of the greenhouses. The garlic is doing stunningly well. Very happy with that. Some of the stalks are as thick as my thumb, if not more so. I can't wait to see what the bulbs look like when it is harvested (not long now, I guess).

James