That is one of my Perpetual Spinach plants. The slugs are obviously partial to a bit of spinach, because many of the leaves have been stripped right down to the mid-rib:
Strangely enough, the slugs have gone for the bigger, outer leaves, and the nice fresh young ones in the crown of the plants are untouched. Very odd.
Nearby there are some Cabbage seedlings. Fortunately they don't seem to have been nearly so badly attacked.
There are some rather bigger cabbages in the next bed too, and they are OK as well, and beginning to form hearts.
The nearby endives are untouched. I never get slug damage on endives.
The other garden pests seem to have packed it in for the Winter. The Whitefly on the Brussels Sprouts are few and far between now, thank Goodness, and there seem to be very few aphids now. My PSB will be glad of that!
Glad those pesky slugs haven't devoured everything.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping the lack of plants this year will put off the slugs next year for me.
ReplyDeleteStripping plants down to the mid-rib can also be a bird pest problem. As well as the easily seen pigeons, other small garden birds including sparrows will surreptitiously peck off lumps of leaf leaving just the central ribs. In my garden, the soft leaves of spinach are a favourite of these birds all year round. A bit of netting might be the answer here and if not, then it's the slugs after all !
ReplyDeleteYou are not the first person to have said this to me today! I have been out and put some protection around the Spinach plants today, so let's see what happens... Why do they not go for the softer, more succulent young leaves, do you think?
DeleteSmall birds just hop on the ground around the outside of the plant, rather than landing on the plant itself (which is what pigeons tend to do). So it's the bigger, outside leaves that get pecked at most and with spinach these are still quite soft compared to big brassica leaves. For small birds, sparrows can peck off pretty big lumps of leaf at a time and they come back again and again with their friends.
DeleteMaybe like me they find endive too bitter.
ReplyDeleteYou know that i have been a very bad gardener this year (hopefully next year will be better), but where I did try the birds, aphids and slugs have ravished that work. You still have something to show for your winter harvest though, I don't think I have anything - even the chard is...well stripped. I will take a gander tomorrow morning, but I am sure it won't be worth showing though photographs,
ReplyDeleteSo kind of you to feed the wildlife ;> At least the other plants seem to be untouched. It would be sad to lose a lot of them. This year I didn't put anything down to get rid of the slugs and ended up with a lot of Asian green damage. I'll have to be better about it next year.
ReplyDelete