what's eating my broccoli plants???

[Jilly Tiller]

After last year when I tried three times to establish brassica plants and each time the whole lot was promptly eaten - I assumed by pigeons as I had seen them on the garden - we put up fruit cages over the whole area to stop the blighters! but - now again all my plants have been eaten again, twice! any ideas? I have put down slug pellets - although there are no dead or live slugs visible, and mouse poison. Birds and rabbits can't get in either. The plants are being eaten within hours of planting out!

any help welcome - or we'll be eating carrots and leeks all winter instead!

[crichmond]

Might be mice.

[hawthorns]

or slugs cause there eating my cabbage seedling. the little ..........

[shirlthegirl43]

Are they vanishing totally or disappearing bit by bit?

[rustylady]

Could be snails, they're crafty and avoid the little blue smarties that the slugs fall for. What does the damage look like. Also it might be worth waiting till your plants are a bit bigger before you plant them out.

[bio-intense]

why would you put poison in your garden??

[lottie dolly]

if possible, go on a night hunt with a torch,if its slugs or snails you'll maybe catch them red handed

[Snadger]

If they were chopped off at the base it could be cutworms!

[Jilly Tiller]

if possible, go on a night hunt with a torch,if its slugs or snails you'll maybe catch them red handed

thanks, done it - and put in a beer trap - no show. but my mouse poison has now gone.....

ta!

[Jilly Tiller]

why would you put poison in your garden??

We have real mouse problem - we are in the middle of the countryside and surrounded by fields - so we have mice all the time! I would be interested to hear of any other way of dealing with them - but on this scale we would need to set and re-set traps every day and i cant use the electro-magnetic repellers as we have animals ourselves!

[Jilly Tiller]

Are they vanishing totally or disappearing bit by bit?

bit by bit - leaves nibbled down to the veins, and then over the next few nights, some of the veins going too. I put a cut-off plastic bottle over a newly planted one yesterday and it has not gone yet - so here's hoping it is the mice...

thanks!

[Janco]

Several years ago I had a problem with rodents eating my plants and I put a "solar molar" in the veg plot and I have had no worries with them ever since!

[hypnophil]

What about flea beetles? can they do this damage? think they ate my cabbage last year and after my peas now, don't know how to get rid of them.