This is the journal of my endeavours to grow a range of fruit, veg and flowers from seed, grow organically, and my attempts to create a personal paradise with 1/2 acre of maintained gardens and 1/2 acre wild meadows. Northern Ireland's average daily high temperatures are 18 °C (64 °F) in July and 6 °C (43 °F) in January. Soil type: Clay

Wednesday, 20 October 2010

(First Frost today) Cabbage - loved by slugs & caterpillars!

This morning marked the first of the Autumn frosts - buurrrr burrr!!!
Pot grown Cabbage 'Golden Acre' from seed.
  
I ate the last of my cabbage in stew over the weekend. I adore the flavour of cabbage; it's too bad most of my cabbage heads were eaten by caterpillars and slugs over the summer.  I'll be growing 'Golden Acre' again in the Spring and I'm thinking ahead - I'll be investing in netting (to deter caterpillars), and I'm also considering plastic collars to keep slugs at bay.

Did you know...
  • The Royal Horticultural Society reports that slugs and snails are the UK's most troublesome garden pest (its because of all the rain we get!)
  • Each slug or snail produces around 500 offspring every season, with the majority of eggs being laid in the summer and autumn.

 
Devoured by slugs & caterpillars!

Caterpillar caviar - at the base. 






















Variety: Cabbage Golden Acre, Homebase, 175 seeds, 39 pence per pack.
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4 comments:

  1. Egretta Wells blog20 October 2010 at 14:49

    I have read that slugs and snails love beer. It is said that you can put little lids full of beer around in your garden and the pests will drink the beer and it kills them, so your lids will be full of dead slugs and snails. I have read this many times, but haven't tried it.
    You could try it, but watch and see if your cats like it, too. Alcoholic cats????

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  2. Esther Montgomery21 October 2010 at 12:38

    Oh no, oh no! I don't like this post at all - it's all too familiar.

    500 eggs! (Did you see my photo of slugs eggs on the aphid post? - http://esthersgardennotes.blogspot.com/)

    Slug fascination must be something which grips gardeners in autumn. I have just come from another slug post.

    We had our first frost last night - earlier than I was expecting and now I'm wondering how we are going to fit the plants which need to be indoors for the winter onto our window sills. (Answer - we wont't. They've gone and grown! - and we have neither a conservatory nor a greenhouse.)

    Esther

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kelli21 October 2010 at 14:01

    Thanks Esther, I really enjoyed reading your aphid post, very good pics and I like your writing style. Sounds like you need a greenhouse! All the best!

    ReplyDelete
  4. meemsnyc21 October 2010 at 22:35

    I love cabbage. Sorry that the catepillars and slugs attacked yours.

    ReplyDelete

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