Martin Brown wrote:
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.

I never thought of that. That may explain my annual courgette-disasters.

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).

Really? I'm suprised I'm not dead. I think that's what we use on the
chickens for red mite. (We == Nick, but then it's me gets a face full of
it next time I go to collect eggs. Mind you, it's better htan the Neem
oil, which just makes me want to vomit the second I smell it)

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!

Oh, that was /so/ upsetting the first time I saw that happen! And yet the
plants actually fleshed back up and made a reasonable recovery (at least
until the pigeons arrived. Probably to eat the fat caterpillars)