brassica shoots eaten

[jimithon]

New to this. Help please. I have a poly tunnel in whuich my brassica shoots are being eaten as well as some of the leaves. The shoots are eaten down to the main stem. The polytunnel has not been open so birds cannot be the culprit. mouse traps are ignored. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this

[Bigmallly]

Hello Jimithon & welcome to the Jungle. My guess would be slugs/snails. Brassicas ideally need to be outside under netting.

[Greenleaves]

In adition to what BM says, dont discount the mice....cunning little critters! Put some flour around them, mice will leave little prints and the added bonus is slugs dont like it

[Gillykat]

I have the same problem at times and as I cannot find any slime trails I think it's a Wood Mouse sneaking into the greenhouse (especially as it appears a few sweet peas have had holes dug in them as the little horrors look for the seeds to eat!) I blocked the hole I found the other day so will check things tomorrow when I go back down.

Putting some flour down IS a good idea I'll try that tomorrow if any more stuff has been nibbled.

[Muddy_Boots]

Hi Jimithon and welcome to the forum.

During winter slugs bury themselves in the ground and their eggs are in the soil as well, snails usually hide and hunker down to avoid the worst of the winter to emerge in the spring to feast on our endeavors. Slugs are particularly clever in that they can feast on your tatties even when they are underground forming on the plants and you won't know until you dig them up at harvest only to find them hollowed out by a slug. If it is one then either go down when it gets dark with a torch to spot the culprit to remove it by hand or use an off the shelf control, I never use the blue slug pellets above ground as they are dangerous to our wildlife, only in the hole with a seed potato when i plant them.