We have so many slugs and snails that every year is a difficult year for slugs and snails for me. This year is no different, but somehow, despite COVID, I've had less time for the garden than usual this year, so it feels more like the slugs and snails are doing more damage and that I'm fighting more of a losing battle.
I didn't originally put slug rings around my squashes, as they were so big they wouldn't have fitted inside. But the slugs soon saw to that, and I put rings round the surviving ones to preserve what was left!
My decision to have more flowers around the veg may have been a contributing factor, as they give the slugs ad snails more places to hide. In particular, I am a little worried for my beans, which I planted around the flowers instead of taking out the flowers I had grown from seed either before they flowered or before I out the beans in. The flowers grew much taller than I had expected, and I clearly hadn't paid much attention to the seeds in my mix, as I was surprised to discover myself growing both borage and cornflowers and also by how tall the cornflowers got. Time will tell whether the runner beans survive this. Other beans have been eaten back to the stem by greedy snails, but the runner beans seem to be hanging on in there, and I hope that when they grow taller than the flowers they will do well.
My broad beans seem to be faring better. They have more been planted alongside the flowers than in among them. However, the black fly have finally arrived, along with a bit of rust, so they're not doing any better than they do in other years.
The climbing roses at the bottom of my garden are looking glorious. They remind me of a bride in all their white finery, and I have taken to thinking of them as "the bride", despite the fact that they are actually two plants. They don't compete with anything, as there's too much shade at ground level to grow any vegetables down there.
My rhubarb is flourishing. Sure, it's got slug damage (the leaves are clearly only poisonous to humans), but considering it dropped every single one of the leaves and stalks it came with, the current number of leaves is very reassuring for me, even if they are a bit slug-battered.
