[Eastling]

Hi
Any tips for planting out, i'm a bit worried about slugs etc. I have seen them planted in a tower made out of stock fencing and trained to grow up instead of along the ground, has anyone else used this method?

Would prefer not to use slug pellets

[Fleecewife]

Courgettes don't trail, but most squashes and pumpkins do.  I usually grow mine in a polytunnel and tie them in to strings then up onto the crop bars.  The fruits then hang down and look good, apart from when I get hit on the head  You can grow them up any structure from decorative to purely functional and it certainly keeps the leaves, stems and fruit up out of harms way - and you way too. You do need to tie them in though, just about every day, and with heavy fruit you may need to support them with tights, or nets or something.  Another good place to grow them is on a dung heap or compost heap.  For slug pellets, you can now get Organic approved ones, which don't affect any other creatures, the corpses aren't left lying around for birds to eat and the pellets break down into innocuous naturally occurring compounds.  The only drawback I have found with them is that the mice love them to line their nests, so if I sprinkle some round my lettuces in the evening, by morning they will all be gone.  Later on when the dogs find the mouse nest it will be beautifully lined with blue    Usually I restrict my use of the organic pellets to underneath weed suppressing fabric, as they then are most effective, not being carried off by the mice nor breaking down in rain, but they are right there where the slugs tend to lurk.  There are lots of other ways to trap slugs if you prefer not to try the organic pellets - lamping at night, picking up from around your plants, beer traps and so on.

[Eastling]

Thank you for your reply will try the fencing cage for the squash.  As i have only started a smallish area this year for veg, the pigs like squash so any left over will not be wasted.

Will look out for the organic pellets, just a little concerned re normal pellets as one of our cats is a prolific vermin catcher.
Will also try the beer traps if i can pinch some of OH beer!!

Sounds like you have a first class mice hotel! wonder if they advertise?

Thanks again off now to start planting out.

[Fleecewife]

Our mouse hotel has one big drawback - they always get dug out by the terriers 

I agree about normal slug pellets and have never used them - they can be lethal to birds and other creatures eating either the pellets or the slugs and snails killed by them, but the organically approved ones seem to have no problems at all.

Happy growing 

[ellisr]

copper bands or as use old piping around vunerable plants keeps the slugs and snails at bay

[NorthEssexsmallholding]

the sheeps wool slug pellets are good, www.sluggone.com.

[Eastling]

Thanks for the info the sluggone looks interesting. Have planted out today see how many i have left in the morning!

[Fleecewife]

The organic slug pellets I referred to are made by 'Growing Success Organics Ltd'  www.growingsuccess.org.uk    and are called 'advanced slug killer'.  They are made of ferric phosphate which breaks down into iron and phosphate, both naturally occurring elements. I got mine from Chase Organics - 'the organic catalogue'  but I have seen them for sale in garden centres - they come in a tall cylindrical pot with a blue lid.
How are your plants since you put them out Eastling?

[Eastling]

Fingers crossed they are doing well. Haven't managed to get any slug pellets yet,i will have a look at the weekend.

[NorthEssexsmallholding]

bloody slug nibbled on a few of my pumpkin seedlings in the greenhouse, I've gone out there today and put sharp sand around them to try to prevent them doing more damage, will also go out there later with a torch to see if theres any about. 

[Fleecewife]

We have had plenty of rain here for the last 3 weeks so there are slugs everywhere, all shapes, sizes and colours - some vegetarian, others predators 

[Eastling]

We are bone dry here (Kent) so perhaps thats why i still have whole plants 

[NorthEssexsmallholding]

only had a few mm of rain here in the past few months in East Anglia, but the slugs seem to have been hiding in the greenhouse somewhere, as I have killed 8 of them in the last 2 nights, been out there with a torch at midnight.

field is very dry so they will probably be safer planted out, not seen any slugs at all out there.

I read that rabbits will leave pumpkin leaves alone, is this true?

[suziequeue]

courgettes don't trail, but most squashes and pumpkins do.  I usually grow mine in a polytunnel and tie them in to strings then up onto the crop bars.  The fruits then hang down and look good, apart from when I get hit on the

Fleecewife

Were you referring to courgettes or squashes and pumpkins in this response?

[Fleecewife]

courgettes don't trail, but most squashes and pumpkins do.  I usually grow mine in a polytunnel and tie them in to strings then up onto the crop bars.  The fruits then hang down and look good, apart from when I get hit on the

Fleecewife

Were you referring to courgettes or squashes and pumpkins in this response?

Trailing squashes and pumpkins.  There are some such as Harrier which is a butternut squash which don't grow very long/tall, which can be tied in to a 6' cane, but the big trailers, which seem to grow for miles, can be trained along the crop bars to good effect and still leave the ground free to grow other stuff.  Courgettes just grow on the ground, taking up about a 3-4' diameter circle.
Sorry - it wasn't very clear    I obviously knew what I meant at the time......