[SausageParticipant]

Thank you, that seems sensible.

[SausageParticipant]

I’ve no idea and I’m not the best person to ask: despite meshing I have some sticks of kohl rabi, kale and kalettes with tatters for leaves. I have left these in before and they have recovered and gone on to give lovely harvests but this year I’m not sure if they’re too far gone. I would check your mesh for holes and make sure you’ve weighted down the edges well, because flea beetles somehow find their way through the tiniest gap. You might still have time to sow, if you don’t mind harvests being a little smaller. Alternatively save time and try buying little plantlets from Delfland Organics. Propagation Place are good too and they still have swedes for sale. Both easily found online. I know it’s not ideal and it’s hugely disappointing when your carefully tended veg become food for wildlife instead of you, but there’s no shame in buying replacement plants if you need to. There’s still time for seedlings bought now to catch up with your original sowing. Good luck!

[SausageParticipant]

Oh Jan I wish we had more mesh! Used up all we have as the birds have been pecking away at everything from soil around lilies to squash leaves to roots of broad beans and sweetcorn. They even pecked a foxglove to death. Clearly desperate, despite the rich pickings elsewhere in the garden and the water we leave for them.

Thank you both for the suggestions.

[SausageParticipant]

Sorry, please could you delete this post? I hit submit before I finished and didn’t realise I’d already posted. The finished version makes more sense https://forum.charlesdowding.co.uk/forums/topic/shallots-2/

[SausageParticipant]

Thank you for your replies, that’s really helpful. I’ll let him know.

[SausageParticipant]

Different strains of Bt target different types of insect. Kurstaki and aizawai both affect lepidoptera including cabbage whites but also other types of butterflies and moths. That plus evidence of resistance building up when over-used is possibly why it still isn’t licensed for home gardeners in the UK.

It’s available from several sellers on Ebay and Amazon under different brand names. There might be a couple more sources mentioned by other members if you use the Forum search.

[SausageParticipant]

Kentucky College of Agriculture have a useful paper here http://www2.ca.uky.edu/agcomm/pubs/id/id156/id156.pdf if that helps.

[SausageParticipant]

It’s odd really. Xentari’s marketed for box caterpillar and some say they use it on fruit and veg but I haven’t seen the results to know if subsp. aizawai works. Thank you very much for replying so quickly, will stock up on kurstaki while we’re still in the EU.

[SausageParticipant]

I much prefer this forum to FB. I don’t always log in, but I do read the posts and comments and I know of some people who don’t sign in but have many of your books and follow your updates and the forum avidly. The search facility is also much better than FB and makes it very easy to access the treasure trove of info. I wish there was a better alternative.

On a technical note, I did wonder if some users haven’t realised with Google reCAPTCHA they need to click on “I agree to these terms” and go through the additional measures to log in? Would using Sucuri help to stop the spammers? They’re different to many security solutions as they redirect your all website traffic through their firewall and filter out anything malicious before it gets to you. I’m not a Sucuri employee or affiliate, just a relieved user who had to get a hacked website protected a couple of years ago.

[SausageParticipant]

Brilliant ideas, thank you. I wonder if the dwarf beans would have worked better if sown undercover and transplanted? Worth experimenting.

[SausageParticipant]

In Organic Gardening Charles suggests 12″ apart for climbing French beans. I assume this isn’t multisown but I can’t tell from the text. Joy Larkcom suggests 9″ spacing because research shows French beans are more productive further apart, so I would go with 12″ if you can.

[SausageParticipant]

Water it if you’re worried. 30/35gsm fleece will get quite warm in some of the sunny spells we’ve had in March and April, between the wind, hail and snow that is. Luckily you can just water through the fleece without folding it back, which is handy.

[SausageParticipant]

The other issue often mentioned with manure and brassicas is acidity. If you’re really worried about that you could lime the bed against clubroot, but personally I haven’t noticed well-rotted manure being acidic. I’ve planted brassicas into it before without any problems and after all, your manure was only a surface mulch. Walking on the beds once the soil dries out a little may help to break up any remaining surface lumps.

[SausageParticipant]

Those are great ideas, thank you.

[SausageParticipant]

Thanks Cleansweep. That’s what I was worried about really, slugs I mean. Admittedly the space is next to the heap and not in it, but I don’t know if that makes a difference?

[Author]

Posts