It has to be said that 2012 wasn't the best year for salad leaves. I started well, with a couple of small lettuces overwintered in the greenhouse and moving into the early spring we have good harvests from cut and come again salad leaves grown under a heavyweight glass cloche in a raised bed. But then the drought set in and then the monsoons started. And the salad stealers arrived... It seems that the slugs in my garden have a good appreciation of the perfect moment to harvest (devour) young salad leaves. They, as I, would check on the developing seedlings on a daily basis. And when the leaves had reached the perfect tender size to be picked, I headed out to the cloche to find....nothing. Absolutely not a trace of them. This happened a couple of times before I gave up completely on the resowing front and started buying the bagged supermarket variety again – at least that way I could guarantee I would have salad available when I wanted it.
Anyway, I have started the new year afresh with renewed optimism and have sowed my first batch of salad seeds in a seed tray in a propagator in the greenhouse. Let's see you fight your way through these, slug invaders!
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| seeds sown on the damp surface of a potting compost and homemade compost mix |
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| Seeds tucked up under a layer of vermiculite and the propagator lid |
