Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tabbyman]

we try growing stuff, but them slugs...

no matter how many we kill from beer traps, more always arrive! and we can't use the copper rings because we have a large garden, and they aren't cheap.

Have you tried pouring a line of salt around the perimeter of the garden? I know they really don't like coming into contact with salt...

I believe that it can have adverse effects on the soil, and gets washed away with rain.

Truth. Don't pour salt in your garden.

Instead, get a duck. They eat slugs all the day and create delicious eggs. Frogs are also good for this too iirc, if you have space for a pond.

Thanks, I failed to consider the detrimental effects of salt on soil. Facepalm moment for sure. I hope nobody went and did it...

You could try planting a border of slug repellant plants, and a couple of plants the slugs like more than your crops, once a week you just pick the slugs off and drop em in a bucket or water or something.
Quick google-fu suggests the best non toxic chemical slug solutions are crushed eggshells or coffee grounds (the caffine is the key, also brew some coffee dilute it and spray it on your worst affected plants).

I like that idea... I water my morning glory with coffee. It's a good source of nitrogen as far as I've heard, so if it repels something it's certainly better than my stupid salt idea.

[Tabbyman]

I have mites on my morning glory plant... Some leaves have turned yellow as a result, and there are super tiny mites on webs. I have sprayed them off a couple times now, with water... Hoping I don't have to spray the plant every day for the duration of its life. It was doing really well up until the infestation.

I guess this is part of the greening of my thumb. Pests...

[Loud Whispers]

Thanks, I failed to consider the detrimental effects of salt on soil. Facepalm moment for sure. I hope nobody went and did it...

Eh you can do it if you've got stone slabs for flooring. Either way I don't have a slug problem since they've all pretty much gone all but extinct here. I'm rather lucky in that I've got naturally growing mint leaves in my garden.

*Ohohohoooo so minty fresh*

[freeformschooler]

My family's been growing tomatoes, canteloupe and a few other things this year. To anyone who's starting gardening or is too busy to grow a normal garden, I want to recommend this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not that model specifically, but vertical gardens are absolutely excellent. We've been doing fine just checking on them once a day, and haven't had weeds since the month we started. Seriously, look these things up.

[FearfulJesuit]

Tell me more about duck ownership.

[Kilroy the Grand]

Oh you guys are going to go crazy when I get off my ass. It will blow your minds.

Only going to post the highlights

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I mainly raise the pheasants to hunt, it's a fun activity for me, a few friends and my dog to do. Plus, who doesn't love braised pheasant?

[Loud Whispers]

It will blow your minds.

Well it wasn't false advertising

[Siquo]

It will blow your minds.

Well it wasn't false advertising

Mind=blown. That is... awesome man. I've got 5 strawberries and some herbs to my name right now. How much time do you spend on that?

[Kilroy the Grand]

It will blow your minds.

Well it wasn't false advertising

Mind=blown. That is... awesome man. I've got 5 strawberries and some herbs to my name right now. How much time do you spend on that?

A few hours a week, I don't need to weed because of the plastic and I have soaker hoses under that, so I don't need to waste time watering. Once you have it set up nice and good it can basically take care of itself, I haven't even had to use that much pesticide on them, only once or twice for potato bugs
Most of the vegetables go to the food bank one of my local churches run. They appreciate it, I even give the Reverend a deer every year.

[Reudh]

This thread desperately needs a bump, so here it is.

We grow a bunch of stuff in our backyard. At the moment most of the garden is laying fallow while we put tonnes of manure on it (Because we live right on the urban boundary, we can go buy 50kg bags of horse or cow manure (often with sawdust added) for $2AUD).

All year round, we have a peach tree which has just finished its first growth year since we planted it nearly ten years ago.... and the peaches were delightful. We've also got a nectarine tree, a bay laurel which produces well... bay leaves, mint overrunning the side of our garden, rosemary for seasoning, nasturtium overrunning the other side of our backyard, which adds a delightful spicy bite to salads.

Frequently grown in the garden:
Chili of various varieties. For some reason they are incredibly flavourful with not much bite.
Zucchini/aubergine. Whatever dad and I do, it works. Our Zucchini frequently reach double the length of store bought ones with more girth too. They taste a bit better than store-bought. By the time they reach a very large size, the flavour goes down and they become only really usable in stuffing or seeds, or fertilising other plants. We did have a bit of problem with blossom end rot, but treated that with some lime scattered around the zucchini and a bit of milk to prop up calcium levels.
Capsicum/bell peppers. We didn't manage to get many from the most recent harvest, but they were all good.
Pumpkin. These get to a goodly size, but the sheer amount of them exceeds expectations. From ten seeds planted we got a full quarter of our backyard overtaken by happy pumpkins, resulting in a harvest of twenty-seven pumpkins. We're relatively well known in our cul-de-sac for giving out pumpkins to everyone.
Broad beans. Tasty, and easy to grow, and they're nitrogen fixers which make everything extra happy.


Any suggestions for what to grow this year?

[Blargityblarg]

Leafy salad vegetables; eight different types of lettuce, rocket etc; my dad did it one year and he had the best salads ever. Tomatoes are also a safe bet - maybe some garlic? It'd help keep pests away as a bonus.

[Reudh]

Ah yeah. Rocket's never grown well in our soil here (it's very high clay, only after ten+ years of digging it up and adding manure and getting topsoil put in is it really able to grow anything), but garlic's a good bet!

[MarcAFK]

So a few weeks ago i finally planted some stuff, snow peas are coming up great, the radishes are up but i planted about 600 and probably have about 60 growing, and the schallots barely sprouted at all, it could be the mild weather or the infrequency of watering.

[Thief^]

I had three onions (just regular shop-bought onions) start sprouting a while back, so on a whim I planted them. They flowered a while ago, and I think they're seeding now. I'll be planting the seeds and hoping for some free onions...

[10ebbor10]

Pumpkin. These get to a goodly size, but the sheer amount of them exceeds expectations. From ten seeds planted we got a full quarter of our backyard overtaken by happy pumpkins, resulting in a harvest of twenty-seven pumpkins. We're relatively well known in our cul-de-sac for giving out pumpkins to everyone.

your biggest?

(this was before the slugs came along) ours was misshapen, and about a half-meter across.
carved it out for Halloween.

Mussel shells,ash and other sharp/dry things you can spread around in the garder work quite well to deter snails to. Just make a circle and they shouldn't crawl over it.