On 10/05/2012 22:18, Christina Websell wrote:
wrote in message
...
Christina wrote:
Well I had hoped that it would rot down, when the digger made a heap of
it,
but now it's just a huge amount of couch grass growing again in a 3 ft
high
heapsigh
I guess growing courgettes in it are out of the plan now.

Not necessarily. courgettes are very hard to kill, I wouldn't have
thought the couch grass would do them much harm. They may even shade
it over enough to kill it off a bit

I'd sort of hoped it would turn into a gigantic compost heap but
realistically, it's been too cold and wet.
I have no experience with courgettes. I tried them once (not where I am
planning to have them now) and the slugs got them.

When you transplant them they invariably suffer a bit of damage and the
smell attracts slugs and snails like displaying a large neon "Eat-Me"
sign. You pretty much have to put some slug pellets down as well or a
ring of copper or diatomaceous earth if you refuse to use chemicals at
all (the latter dust is incidentally *very* bad to breathe).

So, if I inserted a bit of chicken manure into the bottom of the hole that I
plant them in (having started them at my house) do you think they would do
OK?

Just make sure there is a layer of soil between the plants roots and the
chicken manure to avoid burning them.

The main veggie beds show no sign of slugs or snails as there is a huge
expanse of bare soil around them so nowhere to hide.
It would be a brave slug or snail that attempted the journey to my lettuces
(famous last words)

If not slugs then it will be caterpillars. I failed to pay attention and
lost an entire line of brassicas essentially overnight. They were
reduced to skeletal forms and huge numbers of big fat caterpillars!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown