By the Pricking of my Thumbs

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

 

 

 

 

It’s certainly true that the TV Gardeners encourage you to grow your own veg.  Not totally sure why, in the light of the crazy supermarket surpluses being dumped or converted into biofuel, but sure enough no presenter worth his onions would miss an opportunity to extoll the virtues of enjoying your own home grown produce.  During the spring time they can always be seen happily clattering about in the potting shed, keen to demonstrate in finite detail just how easy it is to propagate plants from seeds, which are indeed exceptionally reliable.  And then >>FF>> a few months and they have a lovely crop all ready to harvest which they pick and enjoy, right there in full camera. 

 

Yummy

 

That’s all very scrummy and lovely but I’m always a bit bewildered that they don’t reinforce more the bit in the middle.  The bit they gloss over.  What they fail to underline is that the moment your tender plants are outside you’re on HIGH ALERT as you begin to wage a futile war of attrition against all the things that go munch in the night. 

 

I

Its’ time to pitch your wits against legions of every single beast and bug known to man and no doubt a fair few blighters as yet undiscovered and they're all a'coming; creeping, crawling, slithering on their bellies, flying in or turning up on skateboards, they don't care.  Some of them are living in the soil out of sight and (get this) some set up home right there inside your trophy veg and scoff their way out.

They’re voracious and are programmed to outsmart you. 

You’re no match for their ingenuity, what chance have you got, you can’t post a guard daytime and night-time.  But no matter what the time they’re determined to feast on your precious harvest long before you’ll ever get to enjoy any of it yourself. 

 

 

 

We’ve started off a marginal crop of runner beans this year, partly to demonstrate the many options of flowers and produce that it’s easy to achieve even from our USG-Plot or ‘starter garden’ but also partly to document the heavy losses always sustained with these beans. 

They seem to be under constant attack by tiny pin prick black beetles which eat away the sweet nub behind the flower from which the bean should develop, thereby causing the flower to drop off and ensuring that no bean will form from that node point. 

Each morning on checking the plants up to 80% of the flowers will be scattered on the ground thereby guaranteeing that 80% of your crop is effectively eradicated.   

This is beyond frustrating but an internet search revealed that this problem is not at all well documented.  In trying to ascertain more information on this tiny tyke it was astonishing to see on forum posts that people seem largely oblivious to it.  This could be because these bugs are more destructive in certain geographical areas, but repeatedly they were confused with an entirely different and significantly larger insect.  Strange because this was the reason we abandoned runners a few years ago, but it will be interesting to see how we fare this year.

THE GREAT TOMATO HEIST OF 2013

A couple of years ago we had a very soggy summer and the slugs and snails not usually known to favour tomatoes, probably because of their pungent foliage, were feasting on the tomatoes as there were scant other delicacies available due to an absence of any appreciable sunshine restricting the development of normal garden varieties.  At first it was a mystery as to what was decimating the tomato crop and when I Sherlocked the slug/snail theory, some people (and you know who you are), derided this as a possibility.   However, as the ravages continued unabated it gradually became clear that though uncharacteristic territory, that year, by necessity, their resourcefulness had sent them slithering among the tommies for a juicy nosh.  Lying dormant in the soil during the day to avoid detection.

 

They say a villain returns to the scene of the crime and here proof if proof were needed the varmint returns to launch a secondary nibbling invasion on the already destroyed tomato crop

Yes indeedy, (depending on your point of view) there truly are no end of pests and scallies willing and eager to invade your garden.

Remedies abound, be it Vaseline coated pots or copper devices and infused unguents to deter hermaphrodites (slugs), or maybe they'd enjoy some citrus peel or nice a free beer.  Or for other pests there are Nematodes and/or companion planting.  Or you could always try a politely worded letter left beside the veg patch awaiting their arrival:

 

        Dear Beastie Parasite,

        Kindly desist from devouring these toms, cukes & zukes.

It’d probably be about as effective

There are of course many possible options and proprietary deterrents for dealing with the myriad unwelcome diners and we’ll leave it up to you to decide which is potentially the most ecological, affordable and dependable.  But the truth is, no matter what your weapon of choice, it’s a safe bet that they’ll be back to do their worst.

C O M I N G   S O O N
to a veg patch near you