Sunday, January 13, 2013

2012 – the year that salad forgot

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!

seeds sown on the damp surface of a potting compost and homemade compost mix

Seeds tucked up under a layer of vermiculite and the propagator lid

6 comments:

  1. We've sown some salad leaves indoors under our grow light. Not that they need to be inside but it uses the space left by my cyclamen seedlings

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  2. I grew some wild rocket in a unheated greenhouse bed (sowed in late February) - it suffered neglect and abandonment for 2 weeks in the summer but I just pulled it all up yesterday! Too woody to eat, but boy did it produce. Got to be worth a go? Slugs didn't bother it - which has got to be an attribute to treasure. I find that they tend to leave red leaved salads alone - stand more chance in the garden than green varieties (not that anything could withstand the onslaughts last year, I grant you.)

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  3. Hello, I do agree with you about last year and salad leaves. Hope you have better results with your salad leaves this year. I think last year must have been the year of the slug, but like you, I'm determined to beat them this year..

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  4. Oh good luck as a new season starts - may your salads be slug and snail free. Agree with the comments above from The Tuckshop Gardener - our little mollusc friends are not so partial when it comes to red leafed varieties :)

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  5. Evil little things aren't they? Fortunately we don't have too much trouble with them in summer - too hot for them I guess but for the rest of the year they are the bane of my existence.

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  6. I think we're all hoping for less pests this year! I'll also be happy if the weather remains steadier so that I have a fighting chance of getting some fruit - last year what the frosts didn't kill off, the aphids or slugs did! I wish you luck and hope your propagator works. Liking the tip about red leaves as well (less sugars in the leaves I suppose)

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