Sowing the First Seeds of 2023

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Well, today "I were mostly gaard'ning" - pulling up tomatoes , in the greenhouse, and potting on some foxgloves ( 45 in total). It is quite a commitment growing biennials. as you have to wait that much longer until you can enjoy them in bloom - it's also an act of faith.
Despite all my efforts last year, this years show was very poor. No "towering spires", but stunted plants barely 4ft tall, and many that did not flower at all. Today however I am feeling optimistic - next year things will be far better. :giggle:
 
I'll be harvesting my chilli's next to make my chilli jam supply for the next year got 50 plants to harvest,although some not ripe yet I just freeze them any way and then I'll have a couple of sessions making the jam
 
As far as I know a marrow is a courgette I missed one that was hiding under a leaf weighed nearly 3kg
 
Apologies, my sense of humour gone astray........... It's all in the suffix "ette", Hence - life is too short to stuff a "very small" marrow , which indeed it is :giggle:
A play on the quote by Shirley Conran, " Life is too short to stuff a mushroom"
 
Arrrgh!............ Just had a delivery from "Cornish Cabbage Plants" of bare rooted, wallflower, cabbages and leeks, Just had to brave the elements - high winds and rain - to get them heeled in which will buy me a bit of time to finish the beds. Am typing this peering through rain spattered glasses.
 
Was given some plants from them last year, grew extremely well in spite of being wrapped in wet newspaper for 5 days then being ravaged by pigeons when the netting blew off while I was away
 
I'm keen to grow cabbages. I've got a crop this year, raised from seed in Spring, and they're now almost ready to harvest. Sadly they've been ravaged by slugs though. I cut a couple recently and there was nothing left to salvage, such was the damage. Really frustrating as they've been taking up valuable ground space for months, and I spent ages making a netting cage to protect them from cabbage white butterflies and pigeons.

What do others do to guard against the dreaded slugs? I'm not keen on slug pellets, I can normally manage with out them. Copper is magic to keep them at bay.
 
It has been a bad year for the slugs on cabbages. Drives me mad when they get up the stem and chew their way into the heart 🤬

Keeping the stems clear of old leaves can help, otherwise it's iron based slug pellets, beer traps, upturned citrus skins and so on. I knew an old chap who used to wind copper wire round the stem of young plants but don't know how much that helped. Some swear by wool pellets that form a mat round the plant but to me they just smell of dead sheep and the slugs like getting under them.


The battle continues...
 
Tris said:
It has been a bad year for the slugs on cabbages. Drives me mad when they get up the stem and chew their way into the heart 🤬

Keeping the stems clear of old leaves can help, otherwise it's iron based slug pellets, beer traps, upturned citrus skins and so on. I knew an old chap who used to wind copper wire round the stem of young plants but don't know how much that helped. Some swear by wool pellets that form a mat round the plant but to me they just smell of dead sheep and the slugs like getting under them.


The battle continues...
Click to expand...
Thanks. I've tried those iron based pellets but they weren't that effective and dissolved in the rain quite quickly.

My preferred option is to use copper rings. It's the only alternative to pellets that actually works. I should have put them round the baby cabbage plants this year, not sure why I didn't.
I started out years ago by buying various types of Cu tape and mesh and other purpose made products. They were a bit rubbish really; didn't work that well and didn't last very long. I realised that I could do far better myself starting from standard copper plumbing pipe and some basic metal working.
I cut 22mm pipe to a length of about 12", slit it along its length, bend and beat it out flat to a ribbon and then roll that around the other way to end up with a ring of 4" diameter and about 2.5" high. I put these around individual plants in the ground, or I use them to stand pots on if I'm protecting plants in pots. (This should make a bit more sense with the photos).

I've been using them for a number of years now and really happy with them. They're not 100% effective but getting there. Nothing is against slugs to my knowledge. I'm not sure of the exact chemistry but for some reason but slugs hate copper. I've tested it and watched them visibly recoil from it!

It takes a fair bit of effort and time to initially make the rings but I figure they'll last forever now. Being copper they won't rust away obviously. Also pipe is quite a thick guage they are strong enough to sit really heavy pots on.

If I was a salesman I'd have been on Dragon's Den with the idea before now! Never seen anything as good available to buy.
IMG_20210616_132411.jpeg IMG_20210616_132342.jpeg IMG_20210616_132428.jpeg
 
That looks like a plan, I've got a lot of offcuts of 22mm pipe. There are commercially available ones, but I like projects like that
 
Phil Pascoe said:
I'm tempted to get a tenner's worth of these and spread them around the lanes here. 130,000 seeds. Some will grow. :)
https://www.happygreenshop.com/flower-seeds/foxglove-mix-seeds
Click to expand...
Hi Phil,
The ones you're showing there are a specially bred variety, not the normal local wild variety and therefore probably not as good for the wildlife. Foxglove seed are really easy to collect from the wild and would be a far better (and cheaper) way to go about this. There are hundreds of seed in each pod. As far as I'm aware, although it's illegal to uproot wild plants without the land owner's permission, it is fine to collect the seed...
 

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