Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
6
PESTS AND PROBLEMS
One of the benefits of growing in small spaces is that you tend to pay more attention to the
individual plants and so pick up on problems as they start when they're easier to resolve.
With container growing you also have the advantage of being free of soil borne disease like
club-root or onion white rot and 'soil sickness' which is where the same crop is grown for a
number of years in the same spot. This depletes and unbalances the available nutrients in the
soil.
Slugs and Snails
These really are the worst pest any gardener has to cope with. It seems that no sooner have
you got rid of one lot, another lot moves in. If you managed to clear every single slug from
your garden, in six weeks you would be back at square one. Not only would they have trekked
in from neighbouring gardens but eggs would have hatched. Strangely even hanging baskets
aren't immune to the little monsters. We once joked that they must have a parachute brigade
but the truth is they will climb walls and down the chain into the basket. That's assuming
there were no eggs in the compost.
The easiest answer for slugs in the garden has to be slug pellets but these are a concern to
many people in that they contain a chemical called metaldehyde that is poisonous to pets and
children. There is also a concern that the dying slug or snail will be eaten by a bird or hedge-
hog and thereby poison it. Although there is no real evidence of the danger to wildlife being
actual rather than theoretical, the poisoning risk to children and pets is there. Most pellets in
the UK contain a repellent but any cat or dog owner will tell you how daft they can be and no
parent wants to take the risk.
There are now organically approved pellets on the market that are pet and wildlife safe.
The active ingredient is ferric phosphate, also called ferramol and they're sold as Advanced
Slug Killer by Growing Success. I think they're actually more effective than the conventional
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