Courgette fruits

lar316

Hi all, yet another question regarding courgettes. I went to harvest a couple of courgette fruits last night and was horrified at what i had seen. There was massive chunks eaten out of the fruit. What could have caused this? I am thinking it is slugs as there was shiny slime all over it. If it is slugs, what can I do about it without spending any money?

Many thanks in advance.

nodwah

Sounds like slugs or snails.

You could sink some jam jars in the ground and half fill them with stale beer, the the rim about soil level.

This does collect a lot of slugs but it stinks somethng horrible when you are emptying them

( also I don't tend to have much left over beer:beer:)

there's loads of other ways of deterring slugs, one I often do is sprinkle oatmeal round my plants but I confess I do use slug pellets sometimes it's the only way!

squack

Rat's !!!!

slimey little devil's

loucroft

slugs and snails, use little amounts of slug pellets and it will get rid of them - beware of killing poor little hedgehogs when you do this though, try finding one that doesn't harm them..

reddyman

I dont think its slugs to be honest.

I have loads of slugs munching away at the courgette flowers (if you open up a flower there a usually half a dozen in each) but they have not caused any damage to the actual fruit.

So I'd be inclined to believe it might be something else...Also the skin of the courgette fruit is pretty tough, so it'd need a determined slug to go for it..

Rats or mice having a sneaky nibble maybe?

twinklefish

I've got this problem too. I'm not sure it's rats or mice though as I have a cat and next door's cats are in my garden most of the time too! I was wondering if pigeons might be the culprits?

foxgloves

You'd be surprised what a large slug can get through. My partner & I once sat out at dusk after it had finished raining. It was really quiet & peaceful and we realised we could hear something. It was a sort of rasping sound & it was coming from the nearby flowerbed. We got a torch & tracked the sound down and it was a HUGE slug eating a plant. I don't think large slugs or snails would have too much trouble getting through a courgette skin, to be honest.

Lotus-eater

The skins on small courgettes are not tough at all and slugs would have no problem eating through them!

loucroft

If it was rats, how might you deter them?

Lotus-eater

Get an apple tree, they like apples more.

Primrose

If there's slime, it's probably slugs. They are tough little blighters and can suck their way through very thick skins. They've just decimated a batch of my kohl rabi which have much thicker skins than courgettes. If you've got any newspapers, you could try crumpling them all up and putting them around the base of your plants. As long as they keep dry, this will deter the slugs but if it rains they may not serve as much protection