Hoping for some advice here guys.
We have a problem at our allotment, in that everything we sow, seems to vanish, either never germinate of starts to, then gets eaten.
this year we decided to start a lot off in seed cells at home, and this I've done, with celery, celeriac, leeks awaiting the better weather to be planted out.
As you might have seen from my other post, all the beans I sowed in the greenhouse were snaffled by the 'mouse' so those I'm going to try sowing staright into the soil now.
What I need to know is do you think it'd work if I try sowing things like swede, fennel, turnips etc into individual cells? I wouldn't have thought of this, but after my trip to the garden centre this weekend down in Devon, they had loads of different veg growing in cell trays, but were charging silly money for 1/2 dozen plants.
are there certain plants that won't work like this? Things like the fennel, I see they won't translplant, but they might from cells?
Starting veggies off in cells
Sorry Sue, not ignoring you, just don't know the answer to this one. Perhaps someone else will be along soon.....
Hi Sue, I've transplanted things like swedes and quite a few plants they say you shouldn't transplant and if you are very careful with the roots they are fine, so I should think the minimal disturbance moving them from cells wouldn't make any difference. I think the main thing is not to leave them in the cells too long. Let us know what happens. It is worth a try.
Cheers guys, i'm sowing some today, nothing to loose by doing so,apart from the slugs their lunch!
everything we've sown at the allotment just gets chomped, and I'm at a loss as to what to do about it, my sister won't use slug pellets at all (I'm not keen, but use them in places such as greenhouse shelves, where the slugs/snails seem to kami-khaki it onto the trays os seedlings )
We had a lovely row of radishes coming up last week, on Sunday, nothing left at all... just stalks..
I'd even planted out two rows of celery and celeriac seedlings that I'd grown on in cells, fair sized plants, they''re gone too... so depressing....
Are you sure you haven't got rabbits?
Never thought of that , not an impossibility, though no-ones mentioned it at all.
Just seems an awful lot of stuff going missing......
How horrible for you Sueone! Are the other Allotment holders suffering from the same thing as you?
We have the same trouble on our allotment - even quite large seedlings vanish over night. We don't have rabbits, but huge Roman snails and lots of slugs. I have to admit to using slug pellets now as it was a complete waste of time trying to grow anything. Last week we transplanted thirty lettuce seedlings and even using slug pellets there are only six left this week. They have also eaten quite a few cabbage seedlings, but have quite ignored the kale and broccoli. We were considering going there after dark to do a slug hunt, but aren't keen on going there at night.
A lot of their sytuff too seems to be disapearing.
Your right Patbar when you say about feeling it to be a 'complete waste of time' I have all sorts of veg in cells waiting to go up there, but am really reluctant to plant them, as I just know they're going to be chomped....
What are Roman snails?
We have really rough grass paths, very uneven, and one of the plots to the side of us is a bit overgrown, the guy took it over last year, and is trying to get it under control, but I suspect that this is where most of them must be coming from.
I was looking yesterday at some slug pellets by Growing Sucess, but couldn't work out if they were organic, I assume not. I'm seriously now on the point of giving it up, as it's costing a fortune to feed these blighters...wouldn't mind if we got something out of it too...
Don't give up Sue, try a few more slug tactics, you may reduce their numbers enough to get a reasonable return for your efforts. The Roman snails are the golf ball sized ones that the French eat. It's frightening to think how many seedlings one of those can get through in a night. We never used to get those, but now there are more of them than the smaller striped ones we usually have.
One good slug trapping ploy is to cut a load of comfrey and lay it in a heap where you are going to plant out your plants. The slugs and snails love it, so you can keep collecting them up and disposing of them for a week or so before you put your plants in, and there should be far fewer to eat the plants when you do plant them. The comfrey can be cleared away and either put on the compost heap or put in another place to catch a few more. Just keep topping it up if it dries up. That is assuming you have some comfrey in the first place.
I've tried a supposedly safe new kind of slug pellet, is it ferrous sulphate instead of metaldehyde or something? Unless they have improved it, my slugs and snails ignored it and ate the plants instead. I've just been using the blue pellets which are supposed to have a repellant in them to stop dogs, cats and birds etc eating them. I use these under mesh or covered crops usually just in case anything other than slugs takes a fancy to them.
I'm going to buy some Nemaslug too. It greatly reduced the number of slugs in the main growing areas the last time I used it. It kills mainly the small slugs, so if you gather up the large ones you will have got rid of the breeding population and killed any youngsters before they can breed.
If it isn't slugs rabbits are the only other possible culprit which would eat the tops off. Are you in a rabbit affected area?