"He slimed me."

[julesjones]

Well, *they* slimed my plants... I put a tomato plant into the planter trough a week or so back, then after a couple of days changed my mind and moved it to the other end of the trough, and put a different variety of tomato where the first had been. (There was a good reason for this to do with growth habits.)

The first tomato plant was left completely untouched, in both locations. The second one was assaulted by the slimy little bastard population on the first night, and has now been reduced to a few shreds of wilted and slimed greenery. To add insult to injury, this was a variety that I particularly wanted to grow, and there were only a couple of plants left in the garden centre. I'm going to go over there shortly, but I suspect there will be none left by now.

I'm still planting out stuff from last week's run to the garden centre, because it has been mostly chucking down with rain since then. Some of the strawberries have gone in the hanging basket, but the hanging basket isn't going on the hanging hook until the plants have bulked up enough to discourage anything thinking of using the hanging basket as a cat-proof nesting site. I've learnt my lesson. With any luck the young basil plants will have come in by now, and I can get this year's first crop planted up. I feel the urge to fresh basil and tomato pasta for lunch, and while the tomato won't be coming out of the garden yet, the basil could be doing so fairly quickly.

Two days of sunshine in a row. This is a novelty, after the last few weeks. I'd better make the most of it...

Comments

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Sorry your tomato got slimed. I would give advice, but I'm useless because I've never had to fight what I assume must be snails and slugs.

[julesjones]

I may have managed to deal with it. I went to the garden centre, and not only did they have new stock of the variety that got munched, they had cocoa shell mulch - and cocoa shell mulch is one of the few things I've found that's reasonably effective. But I think the new one will have to go in its own copper-taped pot (the other moderately effective tactic) until it is big and strong. Possibly even indoors at night. It's currently sitting on top of the barbecue on the grounds that if the snails are going to eat it overnight before I can get it into a protected pot, they can damn well work for the privilege, and that's the tallest thing on the patio.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Glad you got a new plant. I did some reading because I was currious and I'm wondering if you've tried building places where they would like to hide so you can smash them or feed them to the local geese or ducks. But then I'm a guy so most of my solutions involve violence.

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7427.html

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Oh God, they are bastards. I've tried all the things they allegedly won't crawl over and frankly the only time I was slug-free was when we had a resident hedgehog.

[julesjones]

Cocoa shell mulch certainly makes them think twice about it, although it won't keep them off something they find particularly enticing. The copper tape is definitely better than nothing, but only works on plants in containers that are not touching anything to provide a bridge, and again won't keep them off something they're determined to get to. It'll just make them *suffer* for their pleasures. (Wonder if it would work on Avon?)

Hedgehogs are one of the reasons why I don't use commercial snail bait. It does work, but it doesn't get all of them and there's a risk of poisoning other things, and frankly any plant that they're *that* determined to get at is probably easier to just grow out of their reach in the first place.

[jjsass.livejournal.com]

Does wood ash help? I heard it did, as well as a saucer of beer, which attracts them then drowns them. My garden was attacked by bunnies; cute but devestating - they ate a whole row of foot-high sunflowers over night. *sigh*

[julesjones]

Beer is one of the things that work to some extent, but it's less practical in a patio garden, and there would be a wasp-attracting problem soon. I sympathise with the sunflower loss -- it's always more galling when you've got several weeks of effort in the plants.

[julesjones]

Oh, and my blurb for Time Tracker turned up to late for Loose Id to use it on the website, but I have finally remembered to put it on my new "Blurbs wot I have writ" page: http://www.julesjones.com/misc/looseidreviews.html