This year hasn’t been a very successful year in the garden, crops wise. I planted peppers, spinach, thyme, runner beans and radishes, and all but the peppers have been eaten by slugs and snails. The peppers have only survived thus far because I kept them indoors until yesterday. The Busy Lizzies I planted at the same time as the fruit and veg are still going strong because I put them out of harm’s way on top of the shed. I’ve put one pot of peppers there now, and one on the top of the dustbin. They look un-nibbled at the moment. It is all very frustrating and makes me wonder why I bother trying to grow my own veg at all. I think next year I won’t bother with beans because this is the second year they’ve been eaten – I think I was being a bit optimistic planting them again. They didn’t get eaten the first couple of years I grew them, so I wonder if those were a different variety that slugs and snails don’t like the taste of. I’ll investigate and see if there are any slug-unfriendly varieties of veg and things out there, but I doubt it! Having said that, they don’t seem to like tomatoes, or chilies, and apparently they don’t like hot (spicy) plants in general, so perhaps I’ll have to stick to trying to grow those in the future.
On a more positive note, the raspberries remain largely untouched by slug or snail, and the strawberries are doing well – I just have to pick them before they’re properly ripe (and ripen them on the windowsill) so they get rescued before the become tempting to those greedy gastropods.
I know how you feel. I can remember planting some seeds inside and being very pleased with myself when they grew. This gardening thing is good fun, I thought and I was fired up with enthusiasm.
Then I put them outside and they all got eaten by slugs and snails
I would like to say that there was a happy ending and I tried again but I didn’t. So you must have more patience than me
Have you tried beer traps? We’ve had major slug/snail issues this year too, so I bought some yogurts and some basics lager (25p a can). I ate the yogurts and sunk the pots in the ground between our runner beans, then filled them with lager. Worked a treat! The pots are full of dead slugs. Only thing now is that I need to empty them which is pretty grim! *Slightly* less grim is scattering bran flakes around the vegetables. Apparently slugs love them, but once eaten they absorb the moisture from the slugs and it kills them. No pot-emptying required. Doesn’t work so well in the rain though.
No, I haven’t tried beer traps, or bran flakes. I am quite stupidly squeamish about killing things, which doesn’t help in my quest to protect my veg! Hope you and D are well.