Cabbage Confusion and lettuce limbo

[horticultural_hobbit]

I'll have a look at the netting. Probably will be aunt maggies net curtains.

Lettuces seem all right for the moment. I just wonder when they will be lettuces proper. The rain has kept them and the ideal carrots well watered. I found a winter lettuce, it begins with V and I get it confused with Jack Vettriano the painter. Suppose I could plant some in the ingested blowaway thing, if not in Pop's garden. You know it's the end of the growing season when he goes around digging and removes all the dead stuff, leaving beautifully turned dirt.

[taff]

it isn't too late for cabbage, have a look in garden centers if you can, they may have some lonely plug plants going and tis the sale season...
Mine have been languishing in a blowaway [to hide them from the caterpillars] and some were planted out a couple to a week ago, they've gone great guns, they wont heart in time for winter, but all of the leaves can be eaten. Try for some kale too if you can.

[horticultural_hobbit]

Oh, I don't want to abandon the one's I've got, so I'm going to be really precious about them. I really need to find some net. I am stupid stingy, I've not got rid of the student mentality. There's I think six cabbages in a round grow bag, and one singular hero cabbage in a pot. So nothing huge really.

[taff]

best get yourself down to a charity shop then

[snohare]

I use Poundland fleece instead of netting, it works well even if it doesn't last as well as Enviromesh.
As for things not growing, once you get them to a certain size, all the brassicas will do just fine in low temperatures, they evolved during an Ice Age, it's high temperatures they don't like.
As a matter of interest, are you using ferrous slug pellets, or metaldehyde ?

[horticultural_hobbit]

I think it is that M word, not ferrous. The things don't have an iron deficiency. I've tried being humane, that is my only defence. I appreciate that slugs and snails fall into the all things bright and beautiful category. (slugs and snails, seriously?)
Yes, I've seen the poundland fleece. Didn't think about that, cheers, sno hare. Good thinking. Cabbages can slow cook, that's fine, not a problem. Tis the lettuces, I'm wondering about. They don't look so lettuce-y yet. Long leaves lolling around. They are the all year around butterhead sort.

[snohare]

Lettuces come in a lot more than 57 varieties, some like Winter Gem are very hardy (I grew them one year under glass in a pit in the soil, as a way of keeping them watered, and they lasted all winter) some will turn to smush at the first hint of frost.
Metaldehyde is up there with organophosphates as regards toxicity, in my book anyhow; I gather moves are afoot to ban it as it is implicated in sterility, cancer, teratogenic etc, you name it, and it turns out that once in the groundwater or reservoirs it cannot be filtered out.
But the reason I asked was I was wondering how you might have got on with ferrous granules, I was thinking of getting some !
My preferred method of slug control would be mashing up a heap of comfrey leaves, leaving them to rot until they attract all the local mollusc, and grab said slimies after dark several nights in a row until there were no more. But as my allotment is miles away I can't, so I use Slug Off - it seems to work, to a degree.
At present I am restoring the karmic balance by relocating them to my new compost-bin-in-a-builder's-bag, where they can all macrophage to their tiny hearts' delight.

[horticultural_hobbit]

Ferrous granuals? Might be worth a google, that. Think the pellets are running out anyway. So if I wasn't alarmed before...the slug tape was a waste with grow bags. Just the cabbages are afflicted. I think the lettuce are okay...I would check but it's the witching hour!

[snohare]

I would check but it's the witching hour!

Aye, be careful...many an allotmenteer has one night become his/her own best pumpkin !
(Beginners merely develop a tendency to eat newly sown peas. )

[taff]

My preferred method of slug control would be mashing up a heap of comfrey leaves, leaving them to rot until they attract all the local mollusc, and grab said slimies after dark several nights in a row until there were no more.

cultivate conditions for slow worms, they'll de-slug for you

[horticultural_hobbit]

I found some poundland warming jackets in the shed. So as a temporary measure have draped it over the small grow bag and pot, fastened with washing line pegs. Probably not the best, no. Should I get an allotment, I can fashion a net thing with childrens' hoop.

Lettuces' look lovely...just not very big.

[snohare]

Lettuces' look lovely

Attention: this is the punctuation police. Please edit the errant apostrophe and report immediately to the headmaster's office for punishment.

I've been trying 2l soft drinks bottles horizontally bisected as cloches on my lambs lettuce, even in just a wee the difference in size between the sheltered and unsheltered plants is appreciable. I seem to remember a YouTube video describing how to grow lettuce in "Baggies" or ziploc bags, something like that, so maybe they would appreciate the plastic minicloche treatment. Even if their seed will germinate on ice !
(Supposedly. )

cultivate conditions for slow worms, they'll de-slug for you

If only. I'm in the middle of a city that has never had slow worms. They are exceptionally rare this far North, there isn't enough heat in the soil for them, so sightings are practically worth journalism. The nearest ones I have ever heard rumours of are forty miles away...bit of a long slither.

[horticultural_hobbit]

[QUOTE=snohare;887335]Attention: this is the punctuation police. Please edit the errant apostrophe and report immediately to the headmaster's office for punishment.

Yes, I know. The contraction device and possession indicator and I have never got on. I blame it on someone nicking my grammar bible, and as an educator I am suitably abashed. Reporting to headteacher's office always gives me the heebie jeebies

Wouldn't have thought about cloching the lettuce at the moment, it's miserable enough for them.

[horticultural_hobbit]

Happy hobbit

The butterhead lettuce have really surprised me. I harvested two leafy one's at the weekend, these lasted a few days. These had been in a shallow clay trough and the shallow soil hypothesis stands up here without a doubt. Especially as the one's in the deep round grow bag didn't get so big and leafy.

I really am pleased with the small batches, as flukey they were. Definitely going to try more again next year. I think I have to winter lettuce actually, that I might sow.

Cabbages. Don't talk to me about #*#^#-ing cabbages. Its mea culpa all the way and nets are a must. Yanked all the torn to shred ribbons today whilst cursing under my breath. Some careful thought required here I think. There are
Some baby greyhound seedlings in the four tier greenhouse, that should I get a patch of land will be planted there. Filled me with a rage that, the slugs and things shredding cabbages. Flipping infuriating.

[Two_Sheds]

I harvested two leafy one's

back to the Head's HH, and do your lines

Cabbages. Don't talk to me about #*#^#-ing cabbages.... Filled me with a rage that, the slugs and things shredding cabbages

Caterpillars do the most damage, then slugs, then woodpigeons. Fine netting is a must, it really is