Pea Advice

[Marb67]

I have some different pea varieties sown in these ploysterine cells. The roots are actually penetrating through solid ploysterine which is I credible in itself.

I want to plant them out as I have long twiggy offcuts in the ground for support. Should I leave them longer or are they about the right size? Also, I don't want to damage the roots when getting them out if possible. Unfortunately I will have to net them as sparrows will pull them to pieces.

[ameno]

The big ones are certainly plenty big enough. The smaller ones are a bit on the small side, but you can still plant them out now if you want; they just might be a bit more prone to slugs.

[Marb67]

They are very very slow growing compared to peas I have grown in the past.

[Jungle Jane]

If you watch them they grow slower After hardening off I would plant them & use a spoon to take them out their cells carefully

[annie8]

Yes agree I would hold off planting the smaller ones until a bit bigger before planting out, but the bigger ones could go out now as peas ok with colder temps. I find a spoon a great tool for lots of garden jobs!

[Marb67]

Thanks folks. I will do that 😀

[Marb67]

Well I'm gutted as I planted them out very carefully and scattered sheep wool pellets around and low and behold slugs have nibbled off a few plants already. I really do wonder why I bother. The plants have hardly grown either. I have coffee granules and eggshells but probably equally useless. There is nothing I can do to protect these plants now so that's that

[Plot70]

I sometimes have have to resort to blue slug pellets early in the season.
There was some alarming reports in the press a few years ago about slugs 8 inches long. If you placed them end to end they would be more than that.
I planted some squash seedlings under frost shields and put a circle of blue slug pellets around each seedling. I visited the seedlings a couple of times over night and found several rows of baited slugs with more crawling over them so that the ones at the top of the pile were reaching up to the first pair of non true leaves of the seedlings. I had to clear up and replenish the slug pellets for the seedlings to make it through the night.
The problem resolved within a few days as the slugs got baited and sent to land fill on an industrial scale.
They were black and quite slender but not much more than an inch long in "wolf-packs" of 20 or more.
The people from the press just looked in the morning and never spotted what was really going on.
With peas you will need to hold off on the sticks or use something that can pass through a lemonade bottle top and with luck you will be able to selectively cull the offending slugs.

[Marb67]

I sometimes have have to resort to blue slug pellets early in the season.
There was some alarming reports in the press a few years ago about slugs 8 inches long. If you placed them end to end they would be more than that.
I planted some squash seedlings under frost shields and put a circle of blue slug pellets around each seedling. I visited the seedlings a couple of times over night and found several rows of baited slugs with more crawling over them so that the ones at the top of the pile were reaching up to the first pair of non true leaves of the seedlings. I had to clear up and replenish the slug pellets for the seedlings to make it through the night.
The problem resolved within a few days as the slugs got baited and sent to land fill on an industrial scale.
They were black and quite slender but not much more than an inch long in "wolf-packs" of 20 or more.
The people from the press just looked in the morning and never spotted what was really going on.
With peas you will need to hold off on the sticks or use something that can pass through a lemonade bottle top and with luck you will be able to selectively cull the offending slugs.

But we have a pond with frogs which should have controlled the slugs. I have sprinkled thick coffee granules all around them so hopefully they won't get through. The wool pellets are supposed to be guaranteed but they are expensive.

[Plot70]

Early season black slugs will climb over the dead bodies of there comrades to get to your seedlings and come before the end of the frog breeding season. The frogs will help later with those nasty brown slugs that strip the bark off runner bean seedling stems.

[Marb67]

Early season black slugs will climb over the dead bodies of there comrades to get to your seedlings and come before the end of the frog breeding season. The frogs will help later with those nasty brown slugs that strip the bark off runner bean seedling stems.

I was told that the large black slugs only eat dead vegetation. If this piggin cold weather wasn't around my peas would be much bigger now. You don't know the trouble I have gone through to actually get them to germinate without rotting and now this

[Plot70]

Those big black slugs come much later in the season. The ones we are talking about are little more than an inch long when crawling at full pelt.
The big brown later in the season ones will go for squash fruits but can be picked off by hand and dumped on a salt tray or be chopped in half.

[ameno]

But we have a pond with frogs which should have controlled the slugs. I have sprinkled thick coffee granules all around them so hopefully they won't get through. The wool pellets are supposed to be guaranteed but they are expensive.

It doesn't really work that way. There can never be any guarantees, and having a couple frogs, especially, is not going to mean you have no slugs in your garden. If your garden is anything like mine you could have many thousands of slugs in it. A few frogs won't even make a dent.

As for wool pellets, they aren't very effective, but more importantly they are meant as a physical barrier, so scattering them broadly around your plants is useless. They need to be in an unbroken ring.

I was told that the large black slugs only eat dead vegetation.

Any claims of certain types of slugs only eating dead plant matter is largely a lie. Dead plant matter may make up the bulk of their diet, but all types of slug and snail will happily snack on new seedlings.

[Marb67]

Those big black slugs come much later in the season. The ones we are talking about are little more than an inch long when crawling at full pelt.
The big brown later in the season ones will go for squash fruits but can be picked off by hand and dumped on a salt tray or be chopped in half.

As much as I find them a pest I couldn't do anything sadistic to any living creature. I usually collect them and take them up the country lanes.

[Marb67]

It doesn't really work that way. There can never be any guarantees, and having a couple frogs, especially, is not going to mean you have no slugs in your garden. If your garden is anything like mine you could have many thousands of slugs in it. A few frogs won't even make a dent.

As for wool pellets, they aren't very effective, but more importantly they are meant as a physical barrier, so scattering them broadly around your plants is useless. They need to be in an unbroken ring.

I could see slug trails on the pellets