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Talkback: Garden pests

For the first time ever I'm considering giving up my allotment, as I have never had a year like it. I must have sown or transplanted peas and mange tout maybe six times. Just about all gone. This inspite of the best netting I can do. Pigeons rabbits and pea weevil. There are a scattered pawky few individual plants inches tall which will never come to anything. French beans, runners, are a little better. Even chard, supposedly reliable is attacked. The best things I had were cucumbers, well netted good soil, are succumbing to leatherjackets one by one. Slugs are easy to manage. The others are not.

Fraid to say the above blog strikes me as smug, and I feel like crying, fact I think I will.
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  • ClaringtonClarington Posts: 4,949
    Hopefully this winter we will have a very cold spell with plenty of frosts to kill a few things off (hopefully more bugs than plants) to "balance out" nature verses successful vegetable plots.
  • totally agree with you hester. I was thinking the same thing.even

    getting rid of the whole of my veg plot and putting a lawn down!

    but then I looked at my new neighbours with their new plot,excitedly coming home from work every night and checking their (now netted)veg.

     

    it is frustrating  and I share your pain, I had most of my plants that id grown from seed munched overnight by snails and slugs, even the sparrows(thinking they were my friends I feed them enough)have been picking at my peas and tomatoes!

    when I watch monty don putting in tonnes of new veg plants,i think,how much did that cost?!!

    I do think the wet warm(ha)winter has really done it this year for the slugs and snails.and pigeons grhhh.... if I had a gun!

    don't give up tho! could you go and have a look at a garden centre and see if anyones selling anything of cheap?

     I got a tray of Brussels for a £1 and some geraniums from the market, I took out my poor cosmos and replaced them and felt so much better.

    get some cheap beer for slug traps watch them tumble in and have a more expensive beer yourself!

     

  • bekkie hughesbekkie hughes Posts: 5,294
    It can be so hard on an allotment, alot depends on your neighbous too.

    Ive managed to get everything in balance, more or less in my garden which i whole heartedly believe is the trick to it all.

    How about trying the old camoflage trick of mixing everything in together to try and confuse the little blighters image

    What about companion planting, do u think it will do anything for you?

    Ive been in your shoes, i know how you feel but chin up, it will get better image
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  • bekkie hughesbekkie hughes Posts: 5,294
    All things weighed up, allotments are fab arent they, i do miss mineimage
  • Hester I feel the same. After rats ate my brassica seedlings in march and then everything else gets eaten by slugs or pigeons, I feel like I am fighting a losing battle. Chard - eaten, cauliflowers - eaten, courgettes eaten. Beetroot..guess?

    Why can't the slugs eat the weeds instead, shall we call a meeting with them to discuss the proposition?

    Keep your chin up I say don't focus too much on what is going wrong. I have gooseberries and potatoes crossed fingers. There is always another year!

     

  • VrystaatVrystaat Posts: 50
    my sunflowers and runner beans have been ruined by a mysterious pest. I dont see anything by day, so presume its at night.Help!!
  • Lily 3Lily 3 Posts: 49
    Hi Hester & everyone. I'm with Claire try and focus on the successes and keep plugging at it. I'm in France ( my first growing year here ) and you would think its all a bed of roses. Great weather and little or no slug / snail problems. But as the plot wax over grown last year and we are in the countryside I am finding the weed and pest problems a lot worse than when I had my veg plot in Manchester. Chaffer grubs have had half of my brassicas image a few tomatoe plants and a good few lettuces. Ants are aggressively farming black fly on my broad beans and I think I may have eel worm in my onions ( heart breaking ) But there are many things coming on ok. Just keep planting a range of veg that will hopefully survive the ravages of bugs enough for you to have something to eat too.

    Best ok luck But don't give up or the blighters have won !
  • J.J.J.J. Posts: 23

    my cabbages are being eaten .and my runner beans out of 20 plants only 6 left not giveing up yet just sow 20 more not beaten yet ,

  • Fishy65Fishy65 Posts: 2,276

    Many words of advice here Hester. Gardening can be frustrating,heartbreaking sometimes but the good times will always come back.This year has been particularly bad with pests especially slugs and snails in my garden.This past winter was unusually mild and many bugs have survived which most likely wouldn't have,things will get better.Don't give up my friend as many here understand how you feel.

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