Warwick wrote in
news:MPG.1c8491dabfc14d56989928@dalai:

In article .com,
says...
Warwick,
Can't you leave them in pots a little longer? Any plant with so few
leaves sounds like fair game to slugs. I planted out what I thought
was a maturing chilli peper plant last year (many leaves) - and the
slugs were not slow to help themselves.

I'll be making sure that they're a bit further on before they get put in
the ground and am happy to pot them on for a while indoors and then in
the cold greenhouse before they get planted. It was just do demoralising
last year to lose so many plants to slugs so quickly. At least with
Hostas you have a couple of days to get pellets down, but the pumpkins
all went in one night.


If the plants were that big in Feb already last year, I suspect they got et
because you put them out too early.

Even if they don't get frost damage, they don't grow fast enough if you
plant them early to harden the stems and outgrow the slugs. I made that
mistake last year: luckily they grow so damn fast I was able to plant
another lot and pot them out in June, and still got good pumpkins.

If you wait a bit and plant them later, they will stand a much better
chance of fighting off the enemy.

Victoria
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
--