Mulching...

[Snadger]

Nowt the matter with slugs and snails and suchlike. Without them organic matter would never be incorporated into the soil.
A pond full of froglets can make short work of them anyway.
Modern day farmers use artificial fertiliser and pesticides to grow there crops and help create inert topsoils devoid of organic matter, worms, and all manner of surface fauna. This gives them a much higher crop ratio than when manure/slurry/night soil were used..................but at a price. I'm not having a go at farmers though, they have a living to make and mouths to feed.
I grow stuff for taste rather than yield, try to be as organic as I can, work with nature wherever possible , and be enviromentally friendly if I can.

You can ask 100 hundred gardeners how to do something and get 100 completely different answers.
There is no right and wrong way for most things,there's only the right or wrong way for yourself.
Enjoy your gardening, weigh up the pro's and cons and do what you are happy with.

[Two_Sheds]

ask 100 hundred gardeners how to do something and get 100 completely different answers.

That's why it's important to find out WHY they do things, not just HOW

[taff]

I haven't got a lsug problem because I have slow worms. The compost heap and various other places give them a habitat, the mulch gives the slugs somewhere to gather as a snack for the slow worms, just like having mcdonalds in your garden....

[Two_Sheds]

No sloe worms in this part of the UK, but I had them in Brighton

[taff]

do they only live in certain areas or can they 'introduce' themselves by moving from garden to garden or field or whatever?

[bazzaboy]

I haven't got a lsug problem because I have slow worms. The compost heap and various other places give them a habitat, the mulch gives the slugs somewhere to gather as a snack for the slow worms, just like having mcdonalds in your garden....

No sloe worms in this part of the UK, but I had them in Brighton

That sounds a good idea, Taff, how d'you encourage them...? Praps deep mulch will automatically attract. I did manage to get a hedgehog in the garden for a while but never seen now....

Is there a reason for that 2S? The BBC seems to think slow worms are nation wide. Common in Essex I seem to recall when I lived there, don't recall seeing them round here though they don't make themselves that obvious. No good if you have local cats evidently, and quite a few of them round here, pity they don't eat slugs... Do moles eat slugs or only worms?

BBC Nature - Slow worm videos, news and facts

[Two_Sheds]

I thought it's just too cold for them here BB. Our hottest hottest summer day is only about 21c, and that will be accompanied by a stiff North Sea breeze

Although this chap thinks it's more down to agricultural practices: http://www.herpetofauna.co.uk/forum/...topic1206.html

and yep, habitat loss again here: http://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org....Slow-Worm.aspx

[Snadger]

There's a notice on our allotment board indsructing us not to be too tidy and to try and attract slow worms.

I remember finding a nest of slow worms in a pile of damp hay when I was a yungun.

I showed my cousin and she said it was only one of those palstic things until it shot its little black forked tongue out at her..........eeeeh, she didn't arf squeal!

[bazzaboy]

I thought it's just too cold for them here BB. Our hottest hottest summer day is only about 21c, and that will be accompanied by a stiff North Sea breeze
Although this chap thinks it's more down to agricultural practices: slow worms in east anglia - Reptiles and Amphibians of the UK - Forum
and yep, habitat loss again here: Norfolk Wildlife Trust - Slow Worm

There's a notice on our allotment board indsructing us not to be too tidy and to try and attract slow worms.
I remember finding a nest of slow worms in a pile of damp hay when I was a yungun.
I showed my cousin and she said it was only one of those palstic things until it shot its little black forked tongue out at her..........eeeeh, she didn't arf squeal!

Well this is extraordinary, thank you both. Clearly mulching stimulates not only the soil but brings forth new tales, knowledge and topics of conversation....

[di]

I'm really excited about my first year of manic mulching...was more than a little annoyed that the snow dared to appear just as I got some huge cardboard boxes to lay over my to be pumpkin patch.

A question I have, which may have been answered before, I now have a ready supply of horse manure. Now I know I shouldn't be using it fresh but could it go fresh on top of cardboard or would the whatever isn't good about it still leach into the roots?

[Kaiya]

I'm really excited about my first year of manic mulching...was more than a little annoyed that the snow dared to appear just as I got some huge cardboard boxes to lay over my to be pumpkin patch.

I've spent most of today going "Ha! Come on rain! Woo! Take that, snow!" in a slightly hysterical way, getting odd looks from my family... Never has weather had such an effect on me!


I am not a seasoned veg grower - I'm a newbie, so if less-newbieish folk say otherwise, I'd probably ignore me too. However, in order to test for aminopyralid I grew 24 broad bean plants last October; 12 in normal compost and 12 in compost mixed with about 25-50% neat horse manure. The end result was two of the normal compost beans got nicked by mice, but otherwise the remaining 22 grew perfectly - despite a high level of utterly unrotted fresh urine soaked horse manure and woodchips in their pot. They are all now in the plot, hopefully surviving the snow, ice, frost and -15C temps. n=1, one swallow making a summer and all, but I'm not as worried about fresh horse manure as I previously was.

I've missed preparing a tomato bed before winter and will be doing the same as you suggest - cardboard with fresh horse manure on top, with some grass clippings on that as they become available. The cardboard is only to kill the annuals that are squatting in my future tomato bed and the grass clippings are only to prevent me being evicted for having loose woodshavings blowing over the allotments. And then, as soon as the seedlings are ready, I will plant them through it, even if it's still fresh. I'll be nice and not pile it up against their stems, but beyond that I think they should be able to take it in proximity. And if they fail, I'll be back next year going 'horse manure... it burns!'

Another n=1 opinion - Gardening Myths.

[Shadylane]

I reckon you could if you didn't let it touch the stems. Allegedly, the high nitrogen content can burn plants or something.

[Two_Sheds]

could it go fresh on top of cardboard

the high nitrogen content can burn plants or something.

The urine could burn any plants: you can see this happen when a bitch dog pees on grass ~ it dies.

There's also the potential problem of nitrogen robbing (the carbon in the hay/straw bit of the poo needs nitrogen to break down; it may rob this from your soil).

Horse poo is notorious for containing lots of undigested weed seeds, esp. docks

Plus, smell?

Also: flies laying eggs in it?

How long does manure take to rot down and be good> dunno. "a few months".

[Two_Sheds]

Another n=1 opinion - Gardening Myths.

I've had a look, and some of it I go along with. However, pages that are full of misspellings and grammatical mistakes look sloppy/unprofessional, and if the writing is sloppy I tend to assume the research/thinking is too: how long does it take to run a spell-check?

He calls lunar gardeners loonies; he doesn't bother explaining why green manures and comfrey are myths at all.

[di]

Perhaps a hot pile compost heap is the way to go...I shall admit to thinking of the lazier option. Thanks.