Does anyone know anything about gardening?

My last sunflower seedling got destroyed by a mollusc last night. It was a foot tall and I was sure it would make it.

Grrr.

Other than onions what can I plant so late?

Carrots - Autumn King type
Beetroot
Radishes
French beans (I tend to stick to dwarf non climbing)
Winter greens/Cabbages
Probably plenty more I can’t think of.

Big mollusc!

They've had my dahlia. Shredded. All you can do is go round & pick them off or get a duck.

As my many questions on this thread will confirm I don't know much about gardening. However, this I do know; slugs and snails are at plague proportions in my garden and crushed eggshells spread around the base of plants they find tasty keeps the little fuckers away. If you don't have eggshells bonfire ash also works as does garlic water.

Thanks for all the replies about the bindweed. Going to save chemicals for a nuclear option.

We save all our eggshells and use them round snail food plants. It has done nothing to save the courgettes. There are a couple of toads but they're no match. The neighbours blackbirds occasionally pick off one or two. I've ordered nematodes.

'Ordered nematodes'.

I have a vision of nematodes marching towards a greater glory and the extermination of all molluscs.

Ah! So that’s what probably ate the head off my sunflower seedling. Sorry about your last one. Have you got more seeds to start again?

I appear to have omitted a full stop there. Now added.
Yes I'm hoping the massed ranks of tiny nematodes do their worst. Also hoping it doesn't upset the toads.

The toads will be fine.

Nematodes for the 5 year plan, advancement of the proletariat and timely demise of slugkind!

Works a treat for me!

I has nematodes.

And slugs.

FML

There was a Dutch lady on Gardeners' World last night who puts her dahlias in pots striped with two copper bands.

She also had to go on a bike ride to get to her garden. Europe is weird

You'd love to have to go on a bike ride to get to your garden. You're just jealous.

Laughed at her obstacle course.

Got given this Niwaki Hori Hori for fathers day.
Excellent for getting weeds out of the lawn however it has made me realise that me lawn IS all weed.

1 Attachment

Slugs ate my kale...

OH reckons cucumber slices liberally placed around your plants will solve the problem, yay or nay?

Couple of passion fruit fell off the vine yesterday, bit small, definitely ripe but still a bit sour... Had them in my porridge with honey this morning, crunchy and tart...

Potted up the Giant Swiss Pansies today. Fairly late but they haven't been strong seedlings this year.

1 Attachment

Front garden colouring up nicely thanks to my youngest Monty.

1 Attachment

Slugs...
[x] reckons [y] placed around your plants will solve the problem, yay or nay?

Unless x = slug pellets, nay.

There are two effective choices;

1. Pellets
   
2. Collect
   
   

As we've got a little one who still randomly eats things from the garden (mint is current fav) we can't do pellets.

I found that militantly collecting slugs every night for a week meant I could move to less frequent nightly collections. They also now rarely come on the veg side of my garden, and are more common on the other.

I put them in the green bin as my OH is an animal lover. I think cutting them in half with a sharp pair of scissors would be the most humane.

All the wild flowers chat prompted me to give it a shot with a spare box of butterfly mix wild flowers that was probably a bit old.

Used the strimmer to cut the grass as short as possible, then a hoe to dig the roots up without having to totally dig the turf up. Should be clear from the pic.

So far a few germinations - not a huge % so glad I used the whole box. Going to give it a proper go on that whole area next year.

2 Attachments

im legit scared of slugs :(