[Closed] STW Veggie gardens

Lots of things are getting ravaged by slugs/snails and anything that isn't getting eaten by them is growing very slowly to to the awfulness of the weather.
Started using slug pellets down the allotment this year due to the amount of them that seem to be about this year.

By this time last year I was sick of courgettes, not had a single one this year 🙁

Yes, everything is slow growing because of unseasonal weather, what is growing is being eaten away by slugs and snails. Raspberries are doing well. Pigeons keep having ago at the brassicas, however they're struggling through.

However our's isn't too bad, due the encouragement of wildlife in the garden. Frogs, birds etc are chomping away at night.

Bad as this sounds, I've been going out at night and after heavy rain to chop the slugs in half, a much quicker death than being poked, prodded and finally eaten very slowy by a bird.

disco_stu - if you can help it, try not to use slug pellets, they are very bad for hedgehogs, which are the very creatures you need to entice into you veggie plot 🙂

I'm campaigning for ours to be turfed over. It's a waste of space and effort. So far this year about 8 tiny alpine strawberries and ONE full sized one that tasted watery and rubbish.

My raised bed has been permanently wet and warm and has started growing mushrooms. Checked my onions and potatoes and nothing doing with them. Strawberries not doing a thing either.

Most disappointing.

Our cabbages are massive but have no hearts, still great eating though. The Brussels sprouts failing to grow next to them have been almost completely scoffed by caterpillars so are doing a good job as decoys. I'm chucking off a dozen caterpillars every evening and the sprouts are a mass of eggs.

Rocket has rocketed and is too bitter, lettuces are OK, tomatoes not growing at all, radishes superb and yesterday we had the first new potatoes, which were delicious with melted butter.

My lettuce and spinach are struggling, not very big and most of them have slug bite marks on them.

My courgettes and squashes are suffering a little too, 3 courgette plants have been destroyed by slugs 🙁

I was sooooo tempted to use slug pellets for the first time, but my patch is full of wildlife with lots of birds, so I cant bring myself to using them.

I'm going to have good look online for some slug removal remedies!

Are there any slug pellets or remedy's out there that don't harm wildlife?
Sadly its not really practical for me to head down the allotment every night to hunt for slugs/snails

Are animal and child friendly slug pellets not OK?

Are animal and child friendly slug pellets not OK?

Have you got some? If so what are they called please?

I have looked through various shops, but they are all nasty pellets which I cant use.

Chard is 8ft high, might just have bolted I suspect.

Bumper raspberry crop and also blackcurrants doing well.

Onions and garlic probably doing OK, will find out when I get round to weeding around them.

Strawberries are going mental
Outside tomatoes are a bit behind

In the greenhouse - grapes, tomatoes, chillies, cucumbers all doing very well

Are there any slug pellets or remedy's out there that don't harm wildlife?

a ring of copper [old pipe] with a few beer traps has kept them down for me

Nematodes can work against slugs, but you need the right sort of soil. Any veggie patch soil should be OK but nematodes take a while to work so you'd need to treat the surrounding area too.

Very poor showing this year - peas just about doing OK, bad germination for carrots. Courgettes took an age then got slaughtered by wind & slugs, beans very slow to start but finally seam to be going, 1st batch of toms got killed by late frosts, 2nd batch struggling. Parsnips & broccoli seem to be doing OK so far.

Salad crops seem to be OK, everything else is struggling. Too wet, too cold, too windy, too many hungry slugs, rabbits, pigeons and pheasants.

Not a single parsnip from 2 sowings, planted carrots for the 5th time yesterday as I seem to have about 5% germination on the others. squashes are looking pitiful, 1 lot of sweetcorn looks OK, 2nd didn't germinate, 3rd lot planted again last week. Sweet potatoes are still alive but haven't actually grown since I planted them out under glass 6 weeks ago, Broccoli had about 10% germination so not need to thin them, let alone transplant them somewhere with more space.

My new crop to try this year was an outdoor cucumber.... HA HA HA HA not a chance

Thinking about getting a few poly tunnels for next year, at least tha way I can control the amount of water the veg plot gets 🙄

Blue berries looking good.
Something is attacking a courgette in a pot. Not eating leaves but eating through stalk near base. We ripped out the first one,put another in and netted it. Same thing happened.
There's something in that dirt and its scarey!

Something is attacking a courgette in a pot. Not eating leaves but eating through stalk near base. We ripped out the first one,put another in and netted it. Same thing happened.
There's something in that dirt and its scarey

That'll be little teeny tiny slugs, same thing is happening to my peppers and squashes. Carpet bomb that baby in slug pellets. Cover or net to keep birds and hedgehogs off. That or nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure

The beer traps are working well, I have 4 pots and one of them this morning had 24 slugs in it.

Its the small greyish slugs that I am finding on the plants and there are loads of them!

I have some chicken wire which I am thinking of using to cover the 2 raised beds, then put some pellets down. This way the birds and wildlife will not get in to eat the pellets, otherwise I seem to be loosing the battle to beat the little sods!