Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

monnagran wrote: »

Gardening is a battlefield and takes no prisoners. I have heard that some people do it for pleasure. Morons!x

Lol, I'm always amused when I hear gardening described as gentle exercise. Really!?

Several rellies of mine earn their crusts as s/e gardeners and it's back-breaking work and really hard to go through the year without sustaining a serious back injury. As one cousin remarked dryly; no one hires you to dead-head their roses.

I waged Slug War in 2013 (some of you will remember the daily tally of the dead, often over 100 slugs per allotment visit). I fought the barstewards to a standstill and only saw 6 in 2014 (which I killed).

Barely have a slug now, despite being surrounded by shaggy derelict plots on all sides. I think the word got around and they're avoiding me........ :rotfl:

pollyanna_26

GQ I am too tired at the moment from the " gentle exercise " to do much more than breath in and out . Real respect to the SE gardeners they are tougher than the tough .
I remember the great slug invasion and still think of you and the battle of the sharp steel when I encounter one . Snails in great numbers here at the moment basking in the endless sunshine and smirking at me . Too dry for slugs but come the rain cometh the slugs .
I would not assume you've frightened them away for ever . I have been reading in fear about the newly arrived super slug - they obviously are coming back bigger and stronger following the great wipeout you inflicted , we know who to blame , but we did cheer you on at the time .

Am I the only person here who loves Anemone Jobert and Purity ?
I have great clumps of them as do various family and friends across England and Scotland ( divisions from mine ) I love them and so do the bees . The Jobert are still flowering until the frosts arrive and are a real joy when a lot of the perennial flowers are over . I keep mine fairly tamed but I have a cottage garden , no precision here . I garden organically for the wildlife .

Off to attempt to catch up on the thread . Please send rain - minus slugs .
polly

GreyQueen

I smile wryly if people mention taking exercise. I have an allotment where a round trip is 2.5 pushbike miles, nearer 3 if I swing by the tip with the horrors which will survive composting such as horsetail and couch grass and bindweed (both kinds).

I eradicated the greater bellbind from my plot but it's trying to climb in from both sides now, I was pulling it off my fences yesterday.

I'm never complacent about slugs which is why I operate a see & kill policy. I garden organically but I have salted the concrete slabs inside my cold frame with slug pellets. No birds can get in there but the slugs can and I'm not having them crawling up the inside of the 'frame from the cracks between the paving slabs and chowing down on my plants.

Thus far, the transplanted runner and dwarf beans and the courgettes and marrows are unmolested. Some of them are sitting in puddles of crushed eggshells which are supposed to disincentivise the slugs and sometimes even work.

Best time for slug-hunting is after rain on a humid evening. I garden in steel toed Docs and am a hefty wench, plus usually have cold steel about my person such as grass shears or a spade. A quick bisection a la Madame Guillotine and its no more veggie dinners for you, mister slug!

Ruddy things even cannibalise each other if you've killed ones, filthy creatures that they are.

Righty, saddling the pushbike to head up there in a few minutes to put the Fear of Me into some gastropods.

NewShadow

GreyQueen wrote: »

I garden organically but I have salted the concrete slabs inside my cold frame with slug pellets...Some of them are sitting in puddles of crushed eggshells which are supposed to disincentivise the slugs and sometimes even work.

Do you nematode?

I've heard good things from the permaculture crowd.

GreyQueen

NewShadow wrote: »

Do you nematode?

I've heard good things from the permaculture crowd.

In a word - no.

I have 300 square meters of lottie with other lotties on three sides, most of which are derelict and full of badnesses. It would be expensive and, imo, futile.

I've read about permaculture for years and like it in theory but in practise I find that mulching = providing slug habitats. But, since I have some plants which are allowed to volunteer and which I harvest at will, such as my Feral Chard (have 4 of them almost a year old and they're nearly as tall as I am ) I could loosely be said to permaculture.

Have just got back in from the lottie where I spent 45 mins clearing the patio, which is a pretentious name for the 15 slabs alongside the shed. I picked up the couch grass which had been drying out there for some time and discovered about 20 of those smaller greyish slugs underneath.

They're even smaller now because I had a wickedly-sharp Poondlandia trowel in my hand and chopped them up. I also walloped some passing snails for good measure but the woodlice and a centipede got a free pass.

I know it seems harsh but they were only 3 foot away from a strawberry bed and one has to think ahead. The other strawberries down the plot had a tiny bit of colour showing on one berry and Something had eaten it right down to the haulm.:mad:

Coulda been a slug or a bird. There is a long list of things which like strawberries and most of them keep longer hours than I do.

On the way home, I performed my Good Deed for the Day by aiding a small party of tourists who were trying to navigate towards a venue using g00gle maps on a smart phone. They were walking away from their destination by 180 degrees but one of them had the wit to flag me down and I pointed them the right way.

Moral? Never trust technology when there's a native passing by.;)

pennib

Woodlice do like strawberries. I was rather shocked to find a family huddled together chomping away at my rather fine strawberries that I had earmarked for my breakie. I had put them on the highest shelf in the polytunnel so slugs couldn't get to them. I now know the slugs were blameless but I still watch my back :rotfl:

GreyQueen

pennib wrote: »

Woodlice do like strawberries. I was rather shocked to find a family huddled together chomping away at my rather fine strawberries that I had earmarked for my breakie. I had put them on the highest shelf in the polytunnel so slugs couldn't get to them. I now know the slugs were blameless but I still watch my back :rotfl:

:eek: Noooo! Say it isn't so!

I rather like woodlice, so I'm shocked at this proclivity, as I'd assumed they were eating rotten wood, which I have no particular dietary need for myself. I regard some strawberry loss as inevitable, tho, as they seem so attractive to any number of critters.

Mine are all outside strawberries but I expect the woodlice will manage to find them on the ground.

[Deleted User]

We've got both the pink and white Japanese anemones but only in a front border between two concreted driveways and they are gradually filling a space where nothing else WILL grow. No problems with them spreading as there's no where to spread to and I really love them. I think in an uncontained position though they could be as pernicious a weed as bindweed or couch grass!!!

Woodlice do love strawberries, I often pick the biggest, ripest ones and find a hollowed out bottom to them and whole colonies of woodlice munching away to their hearts delight. I grow enough to satisfy both our needs and don't mind them sharing in the feast, I'm quite fond of 'Pilly Bugs' too!

mrs-moneypenny

Morning all.
I've found woodpigs (I grew up in Lincolnshire and think that maybe a final name for wood lice) nibbling away in my strawbs.
This year I'm growing them in ornamental planters on stands and a hanging basket so they are off the ground. There are still a few runners that set themselves on the ground in what is now a flower bed.
Along the Side of that bed was a low stack of bricks we moved them as some were needed elsewhere, the frogs were full of hideous leopard slugs I called them that because they had similar markings - someone mentioned they had continued breeding all over the winter. Mine must have been having an orgy! Anyway they got dispatched over the fence into the scrubland that is the local park. I'm hoping they aren't homing slugs but time will tell.

Busy all day with paid stuff but want to make a dress before Friday as we are having a birthday party for the queen. I hardly think making red white and blue attire is being prepared for when it hits the fan but they are the colours of the day and I think the kids will like it.

Have a good day all.

Cappella

I can't grow Japanese anemones at all, I only wish that I could they flower the year I plant them and then vanish never to be seen again. Same with lily of the valley and Michaelmas daisies. All plants I've been assured will spread like weeds. Flippin' montbreesia and Spanish bluebells though, which I've been digging up since we moved in 34 years ago spread like the plague.

Everything's very late here, no broad beans yet! I'm so envious of people further south who've been picking them for weeks already. Mine don't overwinter. They just die. Sigh. I'm sure climate change is going to cause problems with food crops that we don't anticipate.

I intend to empty my preserves cupboard this morning. I have crystallised jams dated 2009. Any ideas as to ways of using it or should I just cut my losses? This year I'm making pickles, marmalades and chutneys but no jam. I'll dry or freeze the fruit and USE it.

I think that food prices are set to rise whatever the referendum result and want to be better prepared to deal with that in the long term.

May I ask you all about something that I've been seriously thinking about? Do people here use cash only for purchases or just cards, or a mixture? Don't answer if the question makes you uncomfortable. I'm finding that using cards only makes me less conscious of what I'm actually spending and am thinking of taking housekeeping money out in a lump sum at the beginning of the month, partly so that I've always got cash in the house but also because I think it will make me much more aware of the amount that I'm putting into food preparation. We have a safe, so the money will be secure, but I'm not sure if it's the way forward?