Slug protection update

Thursday was another day of heavy showers in and around West Yorkshire causing flash flooding in places as reported on local television news. As usual we had a couple of short lived showers amounting to 1.6mm. After a mostly dull day the clouds disappeared to give a lovely sunny evening.

Last week I blogged about setting up my slug protection barrier using copper impregnated matting. After a week the trial has turned out to be inconclusive which is my fault. As you can see from these French Beans (Sungold) there is definitely a slug or snail munching through my seedlings during the night. It seems to have taken a liking to Sungold as the tray of Tendergreen beans alongside are so far untouched. 

I've inspected all around the outer trays for signs of the pests including taking the cells out of the tray to inspect all around the edges and underneath. As you can see in the shot below I've even removed the plants from the cell to see if anything was lurking in the bottom of the cell. Nothing!

These Tendergreen French Beans alongside are fine at the moment. I’ve inspected late in the evening just before dark to see if I could find an early slug but not a trace.

I was checking some cell modules out in a separate water tray alongside these beans when I found one slug underneath a tray of germinating spring cabbage seeds.

Is this the culprit or will there be more like this lurking somewhere I’ve forgotten to inspect? As the cold frame is secure against hedgehogs with netting over the top to stop birds getting in I’ve resorted to using a few slug pellets before all my seedlings are devoured. I’m not particularly happy at having to resort to this but there again I’m not too happy about spending time and money to raise slug food.

I think the problem might be that the slugs got into the French Bean cells whilst the trays were in the greenhouse before the matting arrived. I’d like to think that’s the reason for my problem at the moment.

Not wanting to tempt fate too much my young lettuce plants are managing to avoid attack and our Sweet William seedlings are starting to recover from their slug and snail attack.