Warwick wrote in
news:MPG.1c8491dabfc14d56989928@dalai:

In article .com,
says...
Warwick,
Can't you leave them in pots a little longer? Any plant with so few
leaves sounds like fair game to slugs. I planted out what I thought
was a maturing chilli peper plant last year (many leaves) - and the
slugs were not slow to help themselves.

I'll be making sure that they're a bit further on before they get put in
the ground and am happy to pot them on for a while indoors and then in
the cold greenhouse before they get planted. It was just do demoralising
last year to lose so many plants to slugs so quickly. At least with
Hostas you have a couple of days to get pellets down, but the pumpkins
all went in one night.


If the plants were that big in Feb already last year, I suspect they got et
because you put them out too early.

Even if they don't get frost damage, they don't grow fast enough if you
plant them early to harden the stems and outgrow the slugs. I made that
mistake last year: luckily they grow so damn fast I was able to plant
another lot and pot them out in June, and still got good pumpkins.

If you wait a bit and plant them later, they will stand a much better
chance of fighting off the enemy.

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

"Nick Maclaren" wrote

Sorry about following up to my own, but:

6) Don't try roasting them, either.


I hear what you say Nick but it's going to take all my powers of persuasion
to get Sue to try again, anything with pumpkin in it has always been so foul
tasting to us, don't remind me about the aftertaste please. :-)

--
Regards
Bob
In Runnymede, 17 miles West of London

Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
"Mike Lyle" writes:

"Queensland blues" reminds me too much of the damned Hanson crowd
for comfort, being more of a hybrid NSW red myself.

I agree that replacing her with a pumpkin would be an improvement.

I suppose that was worth waiting for...it's certainly true.

--
Mike.