Oysters.
 

Tesco Express are doing a nice line in fresh oysters
No,I'm not OFF TOPIC,
and my January King cabbages are just skeletons.
We have had long heavy frosts lately, and I don't
think the destruction is due to caterpillars. More
likely the slugs.
I seem to remember that crushed eggshells deter
then, and I was wondering if I took a hammer to
the empty oyster shells and crushed them , then sprinkled
the fragments around the cabbages, would it deter
the slugs.
And is the shell harmful or beneficial to the soil.
Any help would be appreciated by me and the cabbages.

Sam.

Oysters.
 

sam wrote:
Tesco Express are doing a nice line in fresh oysters
No,I'm not OFF TOPIC,
and my January King cabbages are just skeletons.
We have had long heavy frosts lately, and I don't
think the destruction is due to caterpillars. More
likely the slugs.
I seem to remember that crushed eggshells deter
then, and I was wondering if I took a hammer to
the empty oyster shells and crushed them , then sprinkled
the fragments around the cabbages, would it deter
the slugs.
And is the shell harmful or beneficial to the soil.
Any help would be appreciated by me and the cabbages.

It is a well known organic use against slugs and it's also good for
brassicas as it makes the soil more alkaline which is beneficial
against club root and would help the soil in the future against this
fungal disease. Some people recently said that they've been plagued by
cabbage root fly because of the warm season. I've heard that burrying a
bit of rubbarb leaf in the hole when you plant your brassicas help
prevent them laying their eggs near the plant. (I intend to try this
next year :o)

Oysters.
 

sam wrote:
Tesco Express are doing a nice line in fresh oysters
No,I'm not OFF TOPIC,
and my January King cabbages are just skeletons.
We have had long heavy frosts lately, and I don't
think the destruction is due to caterpillars. More
likely the slugs.
I seem to remember that crushed eggshells deter
then, and I was wondering if I took a hammer to
the empty oyster shells and crushed them , then sprinkled
the fragments around the cabbages, would it deter
the slugs.
And is the shell harmful or beneficial to the soil.
Any help would be appreciated by me and the cabbages.

You'd have to eat an awful lot of oysters to make any difference to
your soil alkalinity, but it won't do any harm. I imagine the trace
elements might help infinitesimally, too. As for the slugs, well,
experiences differ, but I've never detected the slightest deterrent
effect from any of the old remedies. Some claim they don't like
crossing rough or prickly surfaces: but a hungry slug has quite enough
slime to deal with those minor obstacles. If you don't want to use slug
pellets, the best is still to give them somewhere nice to hide during
the day or get drunk during the night -- empty grapefruit skins and
saucers of beer are perfect -- and go round squishing the contents
every morning. Bits of slate or something if you don't eat grapefruit.
Ducks will eat slugs, but go to bed just when slugs are coming out, so
you still have to help them along by collecting the sacrificial
victims. Ducks also have bowels which work much more unpleasantly than
those of chickens -- which is bad enough!

--
Mike.

Oysters.
 

"sam" wrote in message
...
Tesco Express are doing a nice line in fresh oysters
No,I'm not OFF TOPIC,
and my January King cabbages are just skeletons.
We have had long heavy frosts lately, and I don't
think the destruction is due to caterpillars. More
likely the slugs.
I seem to remember that crushed eggshells deter
then, and I was wondering if I took a hammer to
the empty oyster shells and crushed them , then sprinkled
the fragments around the cabbages, would it deter
the slugs.
And is the shell harmful or beneficial to the soil.
Any help would be appreciated by me and the cabbages.

Sam.

Regret to inform you that the oyster shells do not work. Totally crushed and
powdered they would add a bit of calcium to the soil FWIW. There might be a
minor change in soil acidity for a few days.
There is a newish product appearing in the UK market, which is an
environmentally friendly effective slug killer based on Ferric
(pyro)phosphate. Both the iron (Ferro) and phosphate are beneficial to the
soil.
Still rather expensive but it will be cheaper next year.

Oysters.
 

"Mike Lyle" wrote:
snip
empty grapefruit skins and
saucers of beer are perfect --
-------
I remember asking the manager of a large garden centre why his hostas
appeared to be untouched by slugs and snails. He said that he and his staff
put out beer traps under and around the plants. Not wanting to spend a
lot of money on premium real ale, he used a supermarket cheapo own
brand which after sampling, proved to be rather good. He admitted that
if it wasn't for the slugs and snails, he would never have thought of trying
it.

MikeCT