Last year I built a coldframe. My wife moved three flats of marigolds into it and something promptly ate the tops off of every one of them.... I didn't think anything ate marigolds! What do you suppose it was? Slugs? Cutworms? Mice?
Any suggestions to avoid the issue this year BEFORE I move plants out this year?
Thanks Ron H. in West Central Wisconsin
1) Dishes of beer, recessed into the ground so rims are level with soil. Remove drowned slugs and put them in your wife's purse, or elsewhere. 2) Some sources say to spread sand around plants, because slugs don't like the sharpness of the particles. Never tried this.
If the tops were completely gone I would suspect slugs or large numbers of some kind of snail. Sprinkling salt around the outer and inner frame should discourage both of these gross slimy little individuals.
I haven't quit worked this all out yet, philosophically I'm opposed using chemical poisons BUT anecdotally, coincidentally, serendipitously, my snail and slug problem has disappeared with my casual use of "Sluggo". What the down stream ramifications will be, I have no idea. All I know is that I have 16 pea plants in the middle of what used to be a snail infested, slug nirvana and, they (the peas) haven't been molested at all for the past 10 days. Twelve days ago, I sprinkled "Sluggo" around my garden area before planting the peas. The container says (caveat emptor) that it is safe to use right up to the day of harvest!!? This seems too good to be true but I sure want to believe it. Anyway, take it from "ol' alligator mouth" and check it out.
As usual, criticism is welcomed and expected.
- Bill Cloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)
Snails luuuurve marigolds.
Find whatever it is. Look for snails and slugs under and around the frame and in any nearby sheltered spot. Put something tasty that you won't miss out for bait and go out at night with a torch and catch them in the act.
David
Didn't we sprinkle slugs with salt when we were kids?
Johhny
NO- leave them a 1/4 inch above the soil and the slugs will enter and drown just fine. What won't drown are the beetles who are predatory on slugs.
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