Anyone with an allotment?

Sweet!

Slugs. What’s the best defence/attack method?
Little fucks ate a few plants already this year but don’t remember really seeing any last year.

Blue pellets? Rings of salt? Beer traps?

I've done nemaslug this year, but maybe a bit late now. Someone at work told me they put rhubarb leaves around the base of their plants as the leaves are poisonous, I have tried this year despite the fact my rhubarb leaves have a few holes in them. But can't really vouch for how effective that is.

If I didn't have my kids up the allotment, I'd be tempted with pellets. Slugs absolutely destroyed my squash last year.

Tried nematodes. Can't say it really did anything. The evil pellets do seem to be the only thing that reliably impacts the population of the little fuckers.

Chickens!

No slug escapes a chicken! I have a six foot by three wide cage that I move around the allotment. Hour or two and the area covered is weed free and definitely slugless.

Or failing chickens, lots of broken up egg shell. Sprinkle liberally around the base of plants, slugs don’t like going over it. That’s my hunch anyway. We do have loads of egg shells to use though from our hens, and loads of egg shells go in the compost we make. Problem with hens doing slug patrol is that they also like eating the tasty green things, so require careful supervision!

You are very right! Put the ladies to work in the overgrown poly tunnel again for another couple of hours today. Did sterling work - but also worked out that they could knock over the plastic bottles I was using to defend the tomato seedlings and scoffed half a dozen. Naughty chickens!

I will be putting up signs to show them the difference between weeds and veg.

I planted some garlic bulbs a while ago, maybe two months. They now look like this. When can I harvest my garlicky goodness?

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Ha! Alas, as vegans keeping chickens/having access to shells isn’t really an option sadly although I used to love gathering eggs/letting the feathery bastards in and out when I was a kid.

Obvs as a vegan I probably shouldn’t kill slugs but let’s be honest, fuck them and their friends.

June:July usually

Depends if you want to try to justify it (to yourself) or not. I’m vegan, but keep hens as the ones we have, would otherwise have been slaughtered after they stopped being commercially viable at 18 months old. The rescues we have get a happy retirement with us and are very spoilt pets. Granted some vegans don’t like the concept of pets either. Up to you if you want to enter that minefield!

Can confirm the rhubarb leaf thing is nonsense. Plenty of slugs hiding under them when I went up the plot after work.

Ta. I'll hold off for a while yet

Oh yeah it’s def a minefield. Given the option my partner would rescue every farm animal on the planet and let them roam around doing whatever they want.

It’s a moot point anyway as they’re verboten on our allotment site.

Anyone know much about elephant garlic? Got roped into the allotment competition and, unlike last year’s lettuce fiasco, something has actually grown. Looks like a flower is coming, should I cut it off to keep energy going to the bulb?

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Who is it that has the perennial cauliflower?

9* perennial ?

Mine .

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Went for a little walk round the allotments today. Blown away by how advanced these broad beans are. Who gets bean crops in may!?

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Those beans are nuts! I thought ours were doing well to have flowers already, they’re not even half that size and no beanage either.

Slugs - I’ve dug a pond and getting some frog spawn so hoping they will take care of that issue.

We aren’t allowed chickens annoyingly

My peas are all dead and the replacements are just popping up.
Haven’t even put the beans in yet :/

Yes! How long do you keep cropping and how do you care for it? We planted a few last year so this is their first productive year. They're super leggy and the flowers don't really make clumps, look more like sprouting broccoli. Read about cutting them back and also making sure to always cut the flowers off otherwise it seeds and dies? Also, absolute snail magnets, hundreds of the bastard things on each plant.

I did all that taking off all the flowers each year for 3 years then decided I needed the space so last year I let them go to seed to save (doesn’t work with brassicas apparently) .
Now they are dead 🥲

Doable if sown the previous Autumn.

I sowed mine the last autumn and they're just flowering, but i guess she (Lynne, whose plot it is) could have got them in in september.