Friday was a much better day with the temperature into the low 20's Celsius, more sunshine than the last couple of days and the wind abated.
It's easy to see from this tub of violas that we've had a strong westerly wind blowing across the pond for a few days now and the pot has taken on a very lopsided look. The violas have stood up to the wind remarkable well.
This week you may remember I sowed some lettuce seeds with the aim of filling some bare ground on the plot where our early potatoes Casablanca are growing but are about to be harvested as the haulms have died down. I've planted the lettuce seeds in module seed trays and moved them to the cold frame. As we've been pestered with slugs and snails devouring seedlings all year I decided to go for full protection for these seedlings to see if the slugs could be defeated.
The module containing the seeds is sitting on a plastic florists bucket which in turn is sitting on some polystyrene. The bottom of the bucket has been sprayed with WD 40 to make it a bit tacky and smelly to crawl over and hence hopefully send the slugs looking for food elsewhere. The bucket, seed tray and plastic module were all carefully inspected before any seeds were sown to ensure they were slug and snail free. I've checked each morning to see that the seeds were damp enough. Funnily enough I wasn't expecting to see any signs of slugs. But this morning!!
Checking out if any watering was needed or if any of our sweet Williams or spinach had germinated I spotted the tell tale signs of a slug trail over a few of the modules. I inspected the bucket and seed tray and found no trace of a slug so I removed the module out of the seed tray and lurking underneath was the culprit. There's no photograph of the culprit which is not going to get another chance to eat any of our seedlings.
Next stage might be to put a thin layer of grease around the florists bucket and see if that keeps the blasted things off our emerging crops. You might just be able to make out in the module next to the bucket our sweet Williams are just starting to germinate. These too are sitting on a florists bucket coated in oil. I might have to use some slug pellets and cover the top of the cold frame to stop any birds getting in and eating poisoned slugs.
Isn't gardening glamorous!
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I think you need to use slug pallet! I use snail pallets all the time when the pest start to invade my territory! They are just so annoying family of pest!
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