wind, rain and more rain, cold, slugs. Damage

[Deleted User]

on the allotment this morning:

Marrow battered by wind and now attacked by slugs

strawberries very bad now, mould and slugs and damage all over the different varieties

young beetroot leaves eaten

companion marigolds eaten

lettuces half eaten

smith warnings locally ie blight risk for potatoes and tomatoes

I could go on and thank goodness I have wind breaks and cages up. Slugs are the worst ever this year and they are just laughing at the `expensive` organic slug off I put out, so I have gone back to normal pellets but sparingly. I am totally put off scrabbling on my hands and knees to get strawberries only to throw 3/4 away. They are all coming out this summer

Carrot germination is poor due to cold and slugs pounce as soon as there are seedlings in sight

LincolnshireYokel

kittie wrote: »

on the allotment this morning:

Marrow battered by wind and now attacked by slugs

strawberries very bad now, mould and slugs and damage all over the different varieties

young beetroot leaves eaten

companion marigolds eaten

lettuces half eaten

smith warnings locally ie blight risk for potatoes and tomatoes

I could go on and thank goodness I have wind breaks and cages up. Slugs are the worst ever this year and they are just laughing at the `expensive` organic slug off I put out, so I have gone back to normal pellets but sparingly. I am totally put off scrabbling on my hands and knees to get strawberries only to throw 3/4 away. They are all coming out this summer

Carrot germination is poor due to cold and slugs pounce as soon as there are seedlings in sight

Yep, thats three crap summers out of four in the last four years. Ive never seen it so bad, the only thing really working are the toms and celery in the polytuynnel, and the chillis in the greenhouse. Everything else, apart from the brassicas has bolted, withered or been mown down by insects. Ive had three goes at cucumbers, all died.

Coming to the conclusions having an allotment is a waste of time.

[Deleted User]

I am thinking that a lot of people just might give up, especially people who haven`t been at it for a long time. My brassicas are good so far but heavily protected in netted cages with companion plants and slug bait. I am scrabbling for potatoes when I get the chance as I fear blight will strike this year. It started with me taking up my whole endangered autumn onion crop (far too early) and dehydrating or sauteing to freeze them for french onion soup. I have pulled up and destroyed half my autumn rust covered garlic and the remainder are getting rustier by the day

It is soul destroying this year

gazza975526570

yeah tough going - but there is always something each year

Ive got a great strawberry crop this year from about 150 plants but i can see they will all rot or be eaten if the rain doesnt stop soon.

For me peas and magetout are coming on great as are my onions, but cabbage, cauli and broc less so. Still got tender things in the greenhouse - ie courgettes and squashes as nightime temps about 2 degrees here this week!! :eek:

twiglet98

Oh Kittie, I sympathise. I planted out young (4 inch high) kale and purple sprouting plants at the weekend, netted to keep butterflies out, with fleece over them too. The fleece blew away (caught on the blueberry bushes!) and the netting moving in the wind has uprooted some plants... but tonight I see only five broccoli plants remain, out of a whole packet sown, two are barely skeletons, and the kale have all been attacked by slugs. The little wretches have destroyed almost all the companion marigolds around the perimeter of each bed. I put plastic strawberry tubs as cloches over my baby lettuces, and copper tape around these tubs, but tiny white slugs the size of peas are inside the cloches, gorging themselves. They're so hard to pick off the baby leaves.

Three packets of courgette seeds sown, tried indoors and out in the fleece-covered blowaway growhouse, only two seeds germinated and both have collapsed since planting out. Two packets of dwarf french beans sown four weeks ago, not a single one showing, neither are radishes, peas, poached egg plants... how can gardening and trying to grow your own be therapeutic and pleasurable when it's a constant round of failures? More tears and frustration than smiles and satisfaction at this rate. .

But the strawberries and blueberries (all in various containers) look good so far, remains to see if they survive to ripen, and 15 of my 16 sweetcorn plants are still standing, planted out in a square block, and now 6 inches high!

I shall make beer traps. Neighbours said the slugs in their garden favour Old Speckled Hen, I think, in preference to own-brand cans...

[Deleted User]

That`s such bad luck twiglet. My strawberries at home, in containers, are doing fine because the strawberries are hanging over the edges. The ones doing the very best are in growbags on table top planters and that is the way I am going to grow them all next year. The allotment, well that is another matter altogether. I have/had a very fine crop of large strawberries which started turning red just before the constant rain and they are wiped. I still have lots of green strawberries but I am not holding my breath. I cannot see future years getting better, according to my weather guru, we are going to have mini ice age weather for 25 years due to sudden jet stream changes

I am planning accordingly :cool:

cootambear

how to deal with slugs


http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/3791154/Give+this+guy+a+medal+XD/

Joan49

I'm so glad I'm not the only one having problems. I despair of my strawberries, and like Kittie I've had to dig up my rust covered garlic. Not only has my spring caggage and autumn onion crop gone to seed but I noticed seed heads on this springs shallots and the pak choi I planted a month ago has sent up flowers!!!! The wind last week blew my broad beans over and my 4 year old plum tree is leaning at 30 degrees. Please don't mention blight, i was so late planting my potatoes that they've only really started growing. On the plus side the rhubarb has been great, I have a bumber crop of gooseberries and my runner beans are doing okay (at the moment)

A._Badger

My sympathies to all fellow sufferers. It's not just the fruit vegetables (to the former list I'd add my gooseberries. which have a miserable number of berries this year and a blueberry that has mysteriously died) but many ornamentals are hopeless too - like a paeony which simply lost its flower buds - no doubt in a fit of despair!

Chatting with a local smallholder/market gardener this afternoon, she told me that she was throwing away ten Honeoye strawberries for every one she picked to sell this week.

About the only bright point at Badger's sett is a stunning display of roses. Roses seem to be performing well for other people, too.

ladylouise62

My permanent planting is loving the wet, and I've had a great flower display from them (although it's been too wet to actually appreciate it )
Strawberries are either slug-nibbled or rotting. The berry plants are loving it, although whether they will have enough warmth to ripen is another issue.
As for the rest........

LincolnshireYokel

Apparantly they're predicting more like normal weather for a while.

In the last 30 days we had 30 hours of sunshine instead of the average of 178 hours. thats like 20% of what we should have, or look at it another way, instead of 30 days of sunshine we had just 6. No wonder nothing has grown much, its all a month behind now at least.

we should have had 70 mm average rain, we've had 140 mm. Twice as much in half the time