Last year, slugs and snails devoured all but one of my runner bean plants. So this year I got smart: I started them off in pots in the greenhouse, so that by the time I planted them out they would have tougher full-grown leaves, which slugs and snails find less appealing than fresh young leaves. They've been in the ground for two days now, and so far it's working.
I've started off a second set of beans in the greenhouse, so the beans won't all be ready at once.
The only problem is that at this time of year, sparrows love to steal string, presumably for their nests. We have a small flock of sparrows (about 10 or 12 of them) who visit the garden regularly. I've already had to replace half the string I tied the bean poles together with. I've added some extra string to the poles in the hope the sparrows will take the non-structural string this time. We will see.
I'm pretty sure the sparrows have also eaten all the carrot seeds I planted, as I caught them pecking furiously in the area and not a single carrot has come up. Still, better to have sparrows than carrots or structurally sound bean poles.
In other news, the log I got for Christmas a couple of years back that was impregnated with oyster mushroom spawn has finally produced mushrooms. The only question is whether I should risk my life on eating them. What if they're not from the impregnated bits but instead an infiltrator? Sure, they look like they could be oyster mushrooms, but is it worth the risk?
