Keep your spiders and banana skins

[sewer rat]

Jennie
I agree - nice to look at but only from a safe distance. I've not seen stings inflicted by our native jellies but when I went to Oz, we were shown an information vidoe about their darling little box jellyfish - what a horrible and evil little b****** that is.

[Sunbeam]

Hi LJ
I'm pretty sure the spider hoover came from lakeland plastics - one of their many 'reasonably price, why did no one else think of that' products!

[Lesley Jay]

Thanks Sunbeam I will check Lakeland out. I did google it but couldn't find a spider hoover.

[sooz]

I'm not sure they are called spider hoovers but they look like massive turkey basters!

Also try the Innovations catalogue that you sometimes get sandwiched in newspapers or dropped through the door (about the only useful and strangely compelling read that arrives on my doormat this way). The spider thingy is the next best invention to a sweater shaver!

Sooz

[gcroft]

Back to the thing about banana skins apart from being rich it potassium they also give off ethlene gas which is a known fruit ripener (comercial growers use the gas to ripen green picked fruit from overseas)

a top tip if your not making chutney any green tomatoes left at the end of the season stick in a brown paper bag with a banana and they will turn red...

[GardenFan]

Another tip is that if your down on your luck with spider webs and have an airborn invasion in your greenhouse then I recommend the yellow sticky pads that you can get from your local garden center. You hang these close to your plants and anything and everything (including the hairs from my arm) sticks to them. I had a recent whitefly invasion and a day after putting these in place I had nailed the lot, very effective at keeping them down.

Another bit of advice is that I found that garlic keeps out whiteflys too, used in combination with traps, basil, spiders and various other tools in your " anti flying nastie toolkit" you will keep them at bay. I dry my garlic out in the greenhouse and the smell is doing the trick, if yours is not ready yet then you can achieve the same effect by crushing up some supermarket garlic (or if you grow in a tub move that into your greenhouse).

On the subject of roses I have been told that an old trick when planting them is to throw a few iron nails into the planting hole.

[JennieAtkinson]

I put one of the yellow sticky things in the polytunnel and unfortunately a bird got in and got rather stuck to it - I only realised after I had let the bird out that it had left rather alot of feathers on the flytrap. Poor thing

[bramble]

I would'nt use sticky traps because a lot of the beneficial insects also get caught on it.

[SueA]

I love spiders & had a 'pet' one in a web in the kitchen window for ages, it used to catch any flies which sneaked in & I watched it change it's skin & grow several times. I was really sad when I found it's last incarnation dead behind the microwave. No it's not just an excuse to not wash the windows & dust! I also regularly help them out of the bath & set them free in the garden.

[nick the grief]

Please God I come back as a spider, meals brought to you & share a bath with a beautiful woman ......

[SueA]

Ah but Nick you could end up in house where you just get splattered!

[JennieAtkinson]

..... or flushed down the plug hole .........

[snohare]

...but not if you spid-er coming...!
BTW, did you know that research indicates spiders can only run for 11 to 13 seconds maximum, before their muscles run out of energy ?

[Alice]

Is there no end to what grapes on this Vine know. I think there should be a prize for that one Snowhare I'll never see another spider without thinking it can only run for 13 seconds !

[Lesley Jay]

13 seconds is long enough, thank you. I really can't stand spiders.