"Mike Lyle" wrote in
:

If these are in a new gardener's soil, they aren't likely to be
fertiliser. I know these things usually are, but I don't think
fertiliser granules pop and squirt slimy stuff from a hardish
"shell".


I was emptying an pot of old compost yesterday, and found a nice 'clutch'
of fertiliser granules at the bottom that did exactly that. Hard case,
content white goo. They may have been 2 years old even, can't remember
now!

Unless the garden (not just the gardener) is absolutely brand new and
unused, and you are quite sure that no-one has been chucking their old
compost sneakily into a corner, fertiliser granules would be my bet too.

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