Unfortunately as soon as I venture outside I'm not so successful. I've got courgettes, pumpkins and squashes - or rather I should have! I would have if it wasn't for those little slimy menaces who inhabit my garden. I wouldn't mind but my next door neighbour manages to cram her garden with all sorts of fruit and vegetables which appear to be totally unaffected. I'm jealous!
I really want to garden organically and I've tried and tried to resist the temptation of using slug pellets but I just can't fight it any more! Where I lived before I had a teeny back garden that was really more of a yard but I still managed to grow courgettes and even a grape vine. Now I've got lots of outside space and I can't seem to grow anything successfullly.
Anyway, I have tried to be good but nothing seems to work.
Slug repellant 1 was coffee grounds. Slugs don't like going over coffee grounds cos it hurts their tooties. Yeah right! The lure of the newly-emerged courgette seedlings was too much to resist. It did stop them having another go at my Micro Tom tomato plant though. Obviously just not inviting enough to be worth the agony!
Then for number 2 I used the barrier method. See thru strawberry punnets from the supermarket inverted over the emerging seedlings and buried under the soil so there was no way through. The persistent little blighters managed to get underneath.
Number 3. Empty grapefruit halves put upside down for them to hide under. So I go out first thing in the morning. Not a sign of slugs in the grapefruit halves, plenty of evidence of them nibbling holes in them though.
Last week at Honley show we saw someone who was promoting pelleted sheeps wool. Slugs don't like the texture of sheeps wool. So I swathed my plants in sheeps wool. I've got plenty since I washed a whole Jacob fleece in one go. I'll never do that again! The slugs appear to have parted the sheeps wool not unlike the red sea. Don't know whether they just hoiked it out of the way or if they actually ate it.
The really really annoying thing isn't that they eat the plants. They don't eat them, they just nibble at the stems a bit. Just enough to kill the plant so that from the kitchen door they appear ok. It's only on closer inspection that I realise the little blighters have been at it again!
It looks like I won't be able to dispense with my veg box for the foreseeable future. Never mind. I always enjoy the trip to Naturally Good Food in Cotesbach to pick up my veg box.
1 comment:
never mind hon, the aubergine looks lovely.
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