I am certainly regretting not buying some nematodes earlier. I had noticed some of my perennials suffering. I suspected slugs. So late yesterday evening I decided to go to war with them! I picked about 60 slugs in a narrow bed approximately 6 metres in length. I dumped them in a field about 50 metred away. Apparently, they can home so you have to dump them a distance away! I only found 20 or so tonight so that's progress I suppose. I have now ordered nematodes but they take a while to take effect so I'll be busy for a little while yet . 

At a previous address I used to teach slugs and snails how to fly. I think our neighbour also tried the same thing...

Nocturnal walks with a bucket of salty water are effective if you don't have a hedgehog in your garden. The extra large slugs certainly have huge appetites and I clearly remember the monster I found making a meal of a dead mouse on the nursery I ran at the time. Yuck.

We have plenty of snails in the back garden, my wife hates them and always calls for me to dispose of them. A couple of evenings ago there was a large one crawling up the glass back door. After a shout from my wife I walked up to it and gently tapped it`s shell with my fingernail. It actually turned to look at me before swiftly retreating into it`s shell. So i launched it over the garden fence as far away as possible.

The temp fell to 4c last night night, so we were lucky to escape a frost and I too have put some bedding plants in.  I usually follow the rule of not planting out until the beginning of June but the recent good weather and output tempted me.  

I think I said last year that supermarkets sell cheap bedding plants far too early in Spring.  Although they’re not daft, if you bed them out too early and frost kills them, you’ll buy again and pay twice.  It’s always safer to wait until local garden centres start selling them because they’re the experts and their plants will be hardened off as well, unlike supermarket ones.

Erm!  I gambled and got some bargains at Aldi!   

Have bought some trays of plant from Lidl and Co-open but they are in my TWO growing frames .Geraniums are doing well after being planted in basket and containers. More to look at today. Got the runners , sweet corn and sugar snaps ready for sowing.

Dropped to 3.3c here though the few bedding plants I have look ok and sun is out again

A few low night temps won’t kill them if they’re hardened off, although it might check their growth slightly, but I can live with that for the sake of giving them an early start in the borders.  

Good Sunny afternoon folks .  Six tomato plants have been basking in the sun.  Bought them this morning at Radstock Co-op. Will proceed to the arched frame growing room  later. The large growbag of compost is already there. Waiting to plant them Sunday when the night  times will be a little warmer.

We got lucky again last night with temps getting no lower than 4c so my bedding plants survived and the forecast for the coming week is for milder nights.  

Runner Beans sown . Sugar snap peas sown.  Sweet corn sown.  Basil Sown.  Spearmint re-potted.  Tomato Plants into compost bag this evening when the sun comes off the arched growing room.  Then ran out of containers. Now have to buy a medium sized container for rosemary.... 

Tomato Plants now in compost bag. TWO rows of three. They have grown a couple of inches since I purchased them. Roots not disturbed on taking out of original  pots. 

You have got a wiggle on in the garden today Art!  

I’ve cleared all the Spring bulbs out of the front border, top dressed it with compost and planted it with Fuchsias.  I’ve emptied the bottom half of the compost bin, which has produced some lovely rich crumbly compost this year!  Hubby’s just cleaned the pond pump and the algae soup has fed and watered the grapevines!

We’d planned to clean the conservatory roof this weekend but have postponed it to next week!  

All set up for the summer with bedding plants in, spring flowering shrubs cut back, and replacements planted for climbers which had died, to cover up the fence. Just hoping for some substantial rain to ease up on watering for the new stuff.

Clouds are building up. Might not need to water today.. Just in the TWO growing rooms. 

On a beekeeping and weather note - the nectar yield from OSR* seems significantly lower this week - and this is usually associated with low rainfall. We have just done our 2nd honey extraction of the year and it is nothing like as good as last week. Added to the weather factor, the crop is starting to "go over", so that will affect yield too. A good soak overnight would be very welcome - but I doubt we will get anything.

Never mind - the Field Beans will not be far behind.

Roger

[*OSR = Oil Seed Rape]

https://thehedgehog.co.uk/feeding-hedgehogs/slugs-and-snails/

Apparently hedgehogs aren't great for eating slugs. That makes sense as I have plenty slugs despite a hedgehog visiting my garden regularly. I generally leave out a few dried mealworms which he seems to enjoy. 

I’ll take the slapped wrists on the chin!  

Hedgehogs hoover up most creatures. We videoed one murdering a mouse!

The mouse was most unwilling to be eaten. That's enough information.....

R.

So, those of you with ponds beware, hedgehogs can swim but they need to be able to get out and they can’t negotiate overhanging paving slabs like we have.

On a brighter note.  We have seen a hedgehog trundling onto our front garden though!  

Need some help here, please. Just looked out of a window into the field next door which has 6 tups having a bit of a holiday. 3 were busy enjoying digging into a large ant hill and rubbing their foreheads in the dust. One immediate thought was something akin to "anting" in birds to counter parasites. Could they have been eating something, pupae perhaps? Surely it could not be as simple as a "boys game" - "Who can keep their head in an ant hill the longest?" - but it seemed quite competitive - some head-to-head pushing. The damage to the ant hill is considerable. Are there any sheep experts who have seen this kind of behaviour? Your suggestions please - decent if possible!
Roger

A good week's watering regime and the garden is verdant; no real slug problems after a run of dry days but today's th'orms will bring them out. Dust off the various anti-slug gadgets in the shed.

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.226103?q=what+are+snails

in which A P Herbert in 'Uncommon Law' seeks to prove that snails are wild animals and that one is entitled to drive them out of one's garden by the quickest available method - as, indeed, one would if one had a tiger in the garden! Also video clips of the episode in a TV series called 'Misleading cases'.

Nice to have 0.6mm precipitation for the newly planted and sown containers. Even the Two growing room containers did not need watering as it was a bit cooler. This afternoon will be different in the sunshine......

Well I'm rolling out operation 'fast and furious' as this is probably the best possible timing for this sunny ,warm fortnight after putting out the summer bedding.

I reckon keeping them fed and watered to near excess will allow max growth as the plants 'bed in' and put roots out into the soils. The last number of years has been a battle of attrition between slugs/snails and me.I reckon the signals the plants give out whilst suffering transplant shock are just what the slugs/snails have been waiting for? "clean up on isle 3...." is the message they get and tootle off to clean up the 'damaged' plant. Of course once the plants are settled the issue can go away for most plants and they get left alone.

With the loss of their daytime hideaways the blighters numbers are well down!( as with the turning over of the land next to us and the 'mulching' of all the snails hibernating in the old evergreens) and the loss of legions of aphids from the old Sycamores has meant my rose buds are all perfect and un-chomped !

So max growth over this period should set everything up for a perfect flower season!

The other boon was the mulch left by the uprooting crew whose machine chewed out the roots and mixed the wood with the soils. A few barrows of that and my borders have never looked so tidy!!! Keeps the moisture in , keeps the weeds down and slowly releases nutrients as the wood rots down!