Friday comes around pretty smartly doesn’t it?? I think I ended my week with a whimper rather than a bang.
I ended up in the garden, just pottering about. Put the water on the corn patch (that nothing has happened in) despite the call for rain. Its the wind that dries off the soil, so thought it best to err on the side of caution and water everything. (And yes its not just raining right now, its pelting down! 🙂 )
Remember this?
It now looks like this (or half of it anyway)
You should have seen the snails! (Oh thats right, you can)
The chickens got quite the feast of broccoli-fattened escargot!
I ended up buying two packs of plastic drinking cups… which really actually goes against my grain because I am not fond of disposables and we really try to limit our use of plastics. But I really needed to get a bunch of little seedlings in the ground – it is the last month of spring after all – and I didn’t have enough containers to cover them. The cups were the perfect size for the little seedlings – give them some wind protection at the very least, and hopefully against pests too.
For the first time I took time to mound up the earth around a few of the potato plants to see what happens
I have also noticed a bit of a surge in snow pea growth (I am SURE I have) since putting up the wind break for them
I was excited to see finally a few bean sprouts pushing up through the soil
The apple cucumbers look sturdy enough but I am not seeing massive size changes yet
Same with the pumpkin and zucchini in the duck-yard. Happy enough but not getting bigger. I suspect we will really benefit from a good week or so of steadily warm weather (‘we’ – meaning the plants AND me!!)
The silverbeet I transplanted in early September has done well
Anyway, the wind was really crazy this afternoon and I finally gave up and came inside to peace and quiet! I just checked the forecast for tomorrow – showers and windy! Sigh. The rest of the week seems to be partly rainy/cloudy. I think I should plan to crochet 🙂
Have a great weekend everyone – hope you have some grand plans!
Cheers
Good morning Lisa can you give me some advice on catching snails, I don’t want to use snail bait as I have 3 very nosey little dogs. The snails are eating everything in sight. We moved house 3 months ago and the garden had been let go wild, so I have a lot of snails to deal with also some giant sized slugs. Do you have any tips or tricks to help get the numbers down, any help would be greatly appreciated warm regards Joyce
Hello Joyce!! Its always a pain trying to naturally sort out snails and slugs. Nothing seems to work as well as poisoning the whatsits out of them. Beer traps are mildly effective – apparently its the yeast they like so you can just mix sugar, yeast and water and try rather than wasting beer. I might make up a trap today just to see what happens! I have never gotten around to trying it. Other people have used with good success. You need to mostly bury a container filled with the liquid. Slugs, snails are supposed to go in and drown. Link to trap made out of plastic bottles http://www.instructables.com/id/Slug-Trap-from-Recycled-Water-Bottles/
Make sure the giant slugs are not the good kind that eat small slugs that are eating your garden. That would be helpful.
The biggest dent you can put in the population is going out at night with a bucket and torch – tedious when you have probably gotten all comfy for the night!But you will get a LOT that way!
Finding the places where they nest, like I did yesterday really helps, but that takes time, esp if you are sorting out a new place.
I have also used eggshells – dried and crushed sprinkled around the gardens I want to protect – along with my seedling covers. Won’t help you catch them but may limit the destruction. Nothing sadder than a seedling disappearing overnight.
Good luck!! Let me know if you try the beer traps. I’ll post something about it when I do too!
Cheers
Hi Lisa thank you for the advice on the snails I will try the beer traps and see how it goes I have a hedge along part of the fence I cleaned up under that and that has helped get rid of some of them. A big area next between the fence and the terrace has small river stone put on it to stop weeds. Why I have no idea it sure didn’t work. We are going to remove them all there is a lot of snails hiding out in that mess. People tend to look for short cuts when they are selling a house that end up a big mess for the next person.
Let me know how they go! (The beer traps!) I haven’t gotten around to doing anything yet!
Ugh – I know about clearing up stones. It never ends!
We are five years down the track and still occasionally finding weird leftovers!!
I am about to go outside to see what snails are attacking my garden! At least its not raining tonight!