Problems on the Plot!

[MarksBarnCottage]

Hi there,

Wonder if you can help - I have a small plot and after a successful opening year, this year has been a bit of a disaster.

I have had issues with four crops - peas, potatoes (main crop), broad beans and beetroot.

For the peas, I had a few visits from the countryside mice, whom managed to munch their way through most of them.

For the beetroot - something has eaten them all - leaves look perfect, but each one has what looks like a huge bite taken out of the globe root.

For the potatoes - four fifths of the crop have been eaten - pounds and pounds of heart-breaking halves of potatoes as I pulled them up on the weekend.

For the broad beans - each pod looks as though something has taken a big bite out of them, and this in turn has made each pod go black in the middle.

So any thoughts on what this might be? I know the mice and the peas, but would/could they also be responsible for the other issues?

Thoughts greatly accepted!

Cheers
Lee

[rustylady]

Don't know about the potatoes and beetroot, but snails did that to my broad beans. Only the middle bit of the pod (or wherever they had nibbled) was affected though, the rest of the beans inside were fine.

[WendyC]

Are there rats on your plot? I've had them devour a sweetcorn crop. I've had a vole eat beetroot.

[Jamesy_uk]

I think most of that could be down to slugs, to give you an idea I dug over my new plot and found about 15 small king edwards so I put them to one side and forgot about them, next day I came back to find them in various states of eaten and at least 5 slugs on them. My broad beans had a similar fate as did about 1/4 of my turnips.

[Florence Fennel]

Hello MBC and welcome to the Vine. Sorry to hear of your problems. I agree, it does sound like snugs (snails and slugs), they've caused disasters for most of us. Hope you can salvage some harvest at least.

[Snadger]

I reckon its RATS!
Devoured my swedes last year and left the leaves. Eaten my young broccoli and sprout plants this year even though I had mesh over them to keep the flying version away. They love potatoes but haven't found mine ye though.. Beetroot is a tasty snack to them. They don't like mooli, but its all went to seed anyway.

[Two_Sheds]

Big bites? I'd suspect rats too: when I had them (very briefly) under my shed, they were nicking sweetcorn cobs to eat under the shed, and goodness knows what else

Slugs will get into the holes and continue the damage.

Spuds though: you say you're digging up halves? Neat halves, or soggy rotten bits & pieces?

[bearded bloke]

Have you any photo's ?

Are there any teeth marks ?

Do your spuds look like ..........



That was slug damage on my maincrop last year


Hello & welcome BTW

[PyreneesPlot]

I lost half of my spud crop - half of each potato had been chewed - to voles last year. The year before it was the leeks. And the tulips. Although they've never touched the beetroot.

We now have cats and no voles...

Welcome!

[Feral007]

Pyrenees - maybe I need a wombat sized cat? I had thought your talk of voles sounded pretty much like me carrying on about the indestructible wombat.