Hi all,

I just got back from the Xmas break and found the tiny baby cabbages I spaced out
around a month ago have mostly been munched. Some are saveable, I think. My guess is
the culprits are slugs or snails, but I can't find a single one!

This is the first year I've grown cabbage and only the second year I've grown
anything. What should I do to save what remains, please? Will a squirt of dilute
detergent do the trick, as it did with aphids in the summer? Is it any good to go out
there with a torch at night and hunt doen the varmints by hand? (It's jolly cold out
there tonight!!)

Thanks for your help and advice,

Liz

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 22:25:08 GMT, FF wrote:

Hi all,

I just got back from the Xmas break and found the tiny baby cabbages I spaced out
around a month ago have mostly been munched. Some are saveable, I think. My guess is
the culprits are slugs or snails, but I can't find a single one!

This is the first year I've grown cabbage and only the second year I've grown
anything. What should I do to save what remains, please? Will a squirt of dilute
detergent do the trick, as it did with aphids in the summer? Is it any good to go out
there with a torch at night and hunt doen the varmints by hand? (It's jolly cold out
there tonight!!)

Thanks for your help and advice,

Maybe pigeons?
--
MCC
A guid New Year tae ane and a'
28/12/03 22:35:42

The message
from MCC contains these words:
On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 22:25:08 GMT, FF wrote:

I just got back from the Xmas break and found the tiny baby cabbages
I spaced out
around a month ago have mostly been munched. Some are saveable, I
think. My guess is
the culprits are slugs or snails, but I can't find a single one!

Too cold for them in most of the UK

This is the first year I've grown cabbage and only the second year
I've grown
anything. What should I do to save what remains, please? Will a
squirt of dilute
detergent do the trick, as it did with aphids in the summer? Is it
any good to go out
there with a torch at night and hunt doen the varmints by hand?
(It's jolly cold out
there tonight!!)

Thanks for your help and advice,

Maybe pigeons?

Much more likely.

Push some sticks into the ground round and amongst the cabbages and fix
black cotton to the tops, tightly connecting the sticks so that you have
a criss-cross arrangement round and over the plants.

The pigeons will feel the cotton as they come in to land and be
frightened off.

If it's rabbits, the cotton doesn't work, but an air rifle does. (Recipe
on application.)

--
Rusty Hinge http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm

Dark thoughts about the Wumpus concerto played with piano,
iron bar and two sledge hammers. (Wumpus, 15/11/03)

"MCC" wrote in message :
I just got back from the Xmas break and found the tiny baby cabbages I
spaced out
around a month ago have mostly been munched. Some are saveable, I think.
My guess is
the culprits are slugs or snails, but I can't find a single one!

This is the first year I've grown cabbage and only the second year I've
grown
anything. What should I do to save what remains, please? Will a squirt
of dilute
detergent do the trick, as it did with aphids in the summer? Is it any
good to go out
there with a torch at night and hunt doen the varmints by hand? (It's
jolly cold out
there tonight!!)

Thanks for your help and advice,

Maybe pigeons?
--

Very likely, too cold for much else to be about other than Rabbits. Do the
plants show just the ribs of the leaves with all the soft green connecting
tissue missing, not the usual slug holes? You should be able to see the peck
marks if you look.

If so it's pigeons. Get together all those unused AOL Cd-roms etc, tie them
to yard long pieces of string and hang them off poles pushed into the soil
at an angle so the discs flash in the wind. Also add some upturned light
plastic bottles over canes so they rattle and flash.
Works for us.

--
Regards
Bob

Use a useful Screen Saver...
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
and find intelligent life amongst the stars
354 data units completed.

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 00:27:55 GMT, Jaques d'Alltrades
wrote:

The message
from MCC contains these words:
On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 22:25:08 GMT, FF wrote:

I just got back from the Xmas break and found the tiny baby cabbages
I spaced out
around a month ago have mostly been munched. Some are saveable, I
think. My guess is
the culprits are slugs or snails, but I can't find a single one!

Too cold for them in most of the UK

This is the first year I've grown cabbage and only the second year
I've grown
anything. What should I do to save what remains, please? Will a
squirt of dilute
detergent do the trick, as it did with aphids in the summer? Is it
any good to go out
there with a torch at night and hunt doen the varmints by hand?
(It's jolly cold out
there tonight!!)

Thanks for your help and advice,

Maybe pigeons?

Much more likely.

Lightbulb moment! We do have a lot of pigeons around.

Push some sticks into the ground round and amongst the cabbages and fix
black cotton to the tops, tightly connecting the sticks so that you have
a criss-cross arrangement round and over the plants.

Will do.

The pigeons will feel the cotton as they come in to land and be
frightened off.

If it's rabbits, the cotton doesn't work, but an air rifle does. (Recipe
on application.)
I have recipe, thanks:-)

Liz

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 18:13:21 -0000, "Bob Hobden" wrote:


"MCC" wrote in message :
I just got back from the Xmas break and found the tiny baby cabbages I
spaced out
around a month ago have mostly been munched. Some are saveable, I think.
My guess is
the culprits are slugs or snails, but I can't find a single one!

This is the first year I've grown cabbage and only the second year I've
grown
anything. What should I do to save what remains, please? Will a squirt
of dilute
detergent do the trick, as it did with aphids in the summer? Is it any
good to go out
there with a torch at night and hunt doen the varmints by hand? (It's
jolly cold out
there tonight!!)

Thanks for your help and advice,

Maybe pigeons?
--

Very likely, too cold for much else to be about other than Rabbits. Do the
plants show just the ribs of the leaves with all the soft green connecting
tissue missing,
Yes. Most are like that.

not the usual slug holes?
Some of the "better" ones seem to have slug holes.

You should be able to see the peck marks if you look.

Drat. It's dark now. I'll pop out in the a.m. with a magnifying glass.

If so it's pigeons. Get together all those unused AOL Cd-roms etc, tie them
to yard long pieces of string and hang them off poles pushed into the soil
at an angle so the discs flash in the wind. Also add some upturned light
plastic bottles over canes so they rattle and flash.
Works for us.

Thank you:-)

Liz

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 18:13:21 -0000, "Bob Hobden"
wrote:


Very likely, too cold for much else to be about other than Rabbits. Do the
plants show just the ribs of the leaves with all the soft green connecting
tissue missing, not the usual slug holes? You should be able to see the peck
marks if you look.

If so it's pigeons. Get together all those unused AOL Cd-roms etc, tie them
to yard long pieces of string and hang them off poles pushed into the soil
at an angle so the discs flash in the wind.

In an experiment I conducted at the weekend it took birds about 30
minutes to get used to flashing Compuserve CDs. Tits got used to them
in a few minutes. Pigeons ignored them completely.
Does this prove that birds can tell AOL from Compuserve?




--
Martin

The message
from martin contains these words:

In an experiment I conducted at the weekend it took birds about 30
minutes to get used to flashing Compuserve CDs. Tits got used to them
in a few minutes. Pigeons ignored them completely.
Does this prove that birds can tell AOL from Compuserve?

The birds (mostly house sparrows) were tearing my sunflower heads apart,
and as I was growing them to provide food and exercise for my cockatiel
I took a dim view.

I planted a thin six-foot cane in the middle of them and lashed on a
plastic food bag at one point so that any wind would open it up and move
it about.

Kept the little hooters off for the rest of the season.

--
Rusty Hinge http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm

Dark thoughts about the Wumpus concerto played with piano,
iron bar and two sledge hammers. (Wumpus, 15/11/03)

The message
from martin contains these words:

In an experiment I conducted at the weekend it took birds about 30
minutes to get used to flashing Compuserve CDs. Tits got used to them
in a few minutes. Pigeons ignored them completely.
Does this prove that birds can tell AOL from Compuserve?

The birds (mostly house sparrows) were tearing my sunflower heads apart,
and as I was growing them to provide food and exercise for my cockatiel
I took a dim view.

I planted a thin six-foot cane in the middle of them and lashed on a
plastic food bag at one point so that any wind would open it up and move
it about.

Kept the little hooters off for the rest of the season.

--
Rusty Hinge http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm

Dark thoughts about the Wumpus concerto played with piano,
iron bar and two sledge hammers. (Wumpus, 15/11/03)

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 23:20:57 GMT, Jaques d'Alltrades
wrote:

The message
from martin contains these words:

In an experiment I conducted at the weekend it took birds about 30
minutes to get used to flashing Compuserve CDs. Tits got used to them
in a few minutes. Pigeons ignored them completely.
Does this prove that birds can tell AOL from Compuserve?

The birds (mostly house sparrows) were tearing my sunflower heads apart,
and as I was growing them to provide food and exercise for my cockatiel
I took a dim view.

I planted a thin six-foot cane in the middle of them and lashed on a
plastic food bag at one point so that any wind would open it up and move
it about.

Kept the little hooters off for the rest of the season.

Remember however that sparrows (all species) are in rapid decline, so
don't be too cross with then ............

Might not be any in ten years !!!!

On Mon, 29 Dec 2003 23:20:57 GMT, Jaques d'Alltrades
wrote:

The message
from martin contains these words:

In an experiment I conducted at the weekend it took birds about 30
minutes to get used to flashing Compuserve CDs. Tits got used to them
in a few minutes. Pigeons ignored them completely.
Does this prove that birds can tell AOL from Compuserve?

The birds (mostly house sparrows) were tearing my sunflower heads apart,
and as I was growing them to provide food and exercise for my cockatiel
I took a dim view.

Our sparrows all disappeared some years ago, a few have returned.


I planted a thin six-foot cane in the middle of them and lashed on a
plastic food bag at one point so that any wind would open it up and move
it about.

Until recently we had one of the last Marks and Spencers plastic
carrier bags used by M&S Amsterdam flapping in the top of a small
tree. We are not sure how it got there, but we were very impressed
with it's strength. It had zero effect on birds. Maybe Dutch birds
are smarter than yer average British native bird.


Kept the little hooters off for the rest of the season.

I feel a double entendre coming on...
--
Martin

The message m
from AndWhyNot contains these words:

/snip/

The birds (mostly house sparrows) were tearing my sunflower heads apart,
and as I was growing them to provide food and exercise for my cockatiel
I took a dim view.

I planted a thin six-foot cane in the middle of them and lashed on a
plastic food bag at one point so that any wind would open it up and move
it about.

Kept the little hooters off for the rest of the season.

Remember however that sparrows (all species) are in rapid decline, so
don't be too cross with then ............

Might not be any in ten years !!!!

Not in decline here. *AND* I left the ivy on the gable end this year for
them to nest in, *AND* when the builder replaces the barge-boards I'm
getting him to fix some communal nestboxen up there just for the
sparrows, *AND* there's ample wild food for them on the broad headlands
opposite and in the local hedgerows.

I remember the days when the sky would be darkened with sparrows at
harvest, and we boys were each given a muzzle-loading shotgun, a flask
of powder, a bag of dust-shot, wads, caps and a measure, and great was
the slaughter withal.

The little corpses were skinned by the farmer's wife and the breasts
made into sparrow pie, which was taken cold, along with a hot baked
potato, butter, and pickled onions, and washed down with beer drawn from
a wooden cask through a wooden tap *AFTER* all the stooks (shocks) were
raised.

Gunpowder smoke, sweat from lifting sheathes into stooks, dust from the
wheat: never did a boy deserve a bath more when he got home, I can tell
you.

And all with depth-charges on account of the onions.

--
Rusty Hinge http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm

Dark thoughts about the Wumpus concerto played with piano,
iron bar and two sledge hammers. (Wumpus, 15/11/03)

On Tue, 30 Dec 2003 11:01:23 GMT, Jaques d'Alltrades
wrote:

The message m
from AndWhyNot contains these words:



Remember however that sparrows (all species) are in rapid decline, so
don't be too cross with then ............

Might not be any in ten years !!!!

Not in decline here. *AND* I left the ivy on the gable end this year for
them to nest in, *AND* when the builder replaces the barge-boards I'm
getting him to fix some communal nestboxen up there just for the
sparrows,

Good Fellow !!!

I remember the days when the sky would be darkened with sparrows at
harvest, and we boys were each given a muzzle-loading shotgun, a flask
of powder, a bag of dust-shot, wads, caps and a measure, and great was
the slaughter withal.

The little corpses were skinned by the farmer's wife and the breasts
made into sparrow pie, which was taken cold, along with a hot baked
potato, butter, and pickled onions, and washed down with beer drawn from
a wooden cask through a wooden tap *AFTER* all the stooks (shocks) were
raised.

Gunpowder smoke, sweat from lifting sheathes into stooks, dust from the
wheat: never did a boy deserve a bath more when he got home, I can tell
you.

And all with depth-charges on account of the onions.

Sorry ..... Good OLD fellow ............ :-)

The message m
from Jack Ouzi contains these words:

Sorry ..... Good OLD fellow ............ :-)

Oo-ar! *AND* apart from the yard, where there was a tractor with a
front-loader, the farm was worked entirely with heavy horses, right up
to the mid 'seventies.

My experiences there were mainly in the 'fifties.

--
Rusty Hinge http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm

Dark thoughts about the Wumpus concerto played with piano,
iron bar and two sledge hammers. (Wumpus, 15/11/03)

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 22:25:08 GMT, FF wrote:

Hi all,

I just got back from the Xmas break and found the tiny baby cabbages I spaced out
around a month ago have mostly been munched. Some are saveable, I think. My guess is
the culprits are slugs or snails, but I can't find a single one!

This is the first year I've grown cabbage and only the second year I've grown
anything. What should I do to save what remains, please? Will a squirt of dilute
detergent do the trick, as it did with aphids in the summer? Is it any good to go out
there with a torch at night and hunt doen the varmints by hand? (It's jolly cold out
there tonight!!)

Thanks for your help and advice,

Liz

Thanks for all the responses. I've been out to have a good look and I'm not at all
sure it's pigeons. Some of the leaves are stripped right back to the vein but I can't
see any peck marks. Other leaves just have the sort of round holes I associate with
slugs and snails. I plan to do the thing with the cotton and the CDs anyway and keep
an eagle eye out for sluggies too.

Thanks again, and a Happy New Year!

Liz