The ups and downs of growing your own dinner 2016...

Waterlily24

I wonder if anyone can help please. Our cabbages, cauli, Brussels and broccoli have been in the ground for roughly a week now and something is getting at them. They've been covered with netting for all that time. I'm putting some pictures up to see if anyone can help.


Sorry about the order.


Nearly all of plant gone




Part of a plant





The whole bed

sazzlebgood?

hi waterlily24 i suspect its slugs.

Fruittea

Hi Waterlily
Looks like you have a slug problem to me. The little terrors come up and eat everything. Would you think about slug pellets or perhaps a beer trap. You could lay a piece of carpet or cardboard down over night and see what gets under there - and then decide what action to take.

Waterlily24

Thank you sazzlebgood? and Fruittea. I wondered about the hole in picture 1, several are like that.


Might try a beer trap and maybe some slug pellets when we can get out to get some. I'll also try a bit of cardboard.


Thanks again.

[Deleted User]

Waterlily24 wrote: »

I wonder if anyone can help please. Our cabbages, cauli, Brussels and broccoli have been in the ground for roughly a week now and something is getting at them.
]

looks to me as though it is cutworms and also slugs. The cutworms cut the brassicas at soil level. Diatomaceous earth works well for these pesky blighters. I never plant brassicas without collars btw, I saw a whole row toppled overnight when I was young, it was cabbage root fly then and not cutworms. I had a cutworm three years ago and I found it and dealt with it, Collars protect against root fly

cutworm
http://www.planetnatural.com/pest-problem-solver/garden-pests/cutworm-control/

elaineruk

Found a new free resource online from gyo expert Pippa Greenwood - you can also submit your questions there for free (she charges on her own website)!! goto4gardening co uk/gyo

Not letting me post a url cos I'm a new user, but you should be able to locate it!

elaineruk

An often not mentioned tip for keeping slugs away is to encourage natural predators - my garden is very damp and should be infested by slugs, but we have loads of frogs which seem to keep the slugs at bay!!

I would like to encourage hedgehogs too - any ideas?

thriftylass

Will have to harvest my bok choi tomorrow. Handy that I have planned to cook a Chinese fakeaway anyway. The bok choi started to bolt. I guess it was too warm and dry now and it got stressed. I'll try in late autumn again

sazzlebgood?

planted the sweetcorn plants today hoping we don't have a late frost. Really pleased with them as this is the first time I've managed to grow them. Inter-planted them with sunflowers. Been trying to get rid of bindweed which is an ongoing battle. Harvested some more rhubarb as a friend has given me a reciepe for rhubarb muffins. Came home early as it started to rain.

laidbackgjr

Rhubarb muffins sound good - just finished the last of this http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3087680/rhubarb-and-orange-cake very nice use of home grown rhubarb.