A couple of weeks ago I planted some broad beans to grow through the winter. While I was at it, a couple of rows of first early peas (Douce Provence) went in, and these I covered with one of those portable cloche tunnels.
This weekend I dashed down to see how they were all coming along, and am delighted to report that the beans have already begun popping through the soil, and are looking healthy and strong.
Uncovering the peas, I was greeted with a different story. That patch was empty. On closer inspection, I discovered that the plants had, in fact, come up, but had strangely been chopped off at about an inch long. There was a row of teeny tiny shoots, but not one of them was in the ground.
Consulting my gardening friends, the most probable explanation offered was that mice were digging them up, and eating the seeds.
“Marvellous!” I thought. After whipping my plants out of the hungry mouths of slugs, birds and caterpillars all year, we now seem to be providing an ‘eat all you can’ buffet for the local mouse population. A quick search of the shed produced a couple of traps, which I baited up with ham and set under the cloche.
The next morning, I rushed off down the garden to see what I’d caught, and would you believe, there was only a blooming slug in the mouse trap! I reset the trap, and refilled the slug pubs around the garden, as we obviously had both slugs and mice sneaking into the veg plot.
My friend informed me that apart from the beer traps, another great way rid your garden of slugs was to actually go out there at night with a torch, and hand pick the little blighters. Deciding to give that one a go, I’ve been doing nightly garden patrols, creeping up on them, and chucking them into a container with some salt in it. This has been mightily effective, if a little addictive, and over the course of a week I’ve caught 45 whoppers.
Resigning myself to the fact that the pea crop may not make the winter, I’ve deployed a back up plan. I’ve chopped the top off one of the used grow bags in the greenhouse, and have planted some peas in it. I’m hoping that they can over winter in there, and be safely out of reach of both our mouse and slug population. In spring, I’ll simply transfer them to the garden. Well, that’s the plan…
