What is Happening With Our Weather??

It’s very nearly officially ‘Summer’ and I don’t think we have started ‘spring’ yet, some nights it has been SO cold I have lit our wood burner, and I am still attached to my icebreakers!!

For the last three days we have had non stop rain showers, some so heavy the rain drops sound like gravel being thrown against our windows. I have only managed a quick tour around the kitchen garden to collect the pesky snails and slugs!

This year I had to revise my seed germination plans, I usually sow my first seeds in October into 1/2 egg shells and then transfer the young seedlings into 1/2 toilet rook pots until the weather warms & then they are big enough to plant outside in the Kitchen garden with their first set of real leaves.

But, this year, with the threat of spraying I decided to sow my first seeds into small plastic pots I was lucky to buy for a ridiculous low price.

As it turns out, they have been just the ticket as the weather here on the block has been so unpredictable hot warm cold fog wind rain & more we have had come our way.

So I have had literally hundreds of pots in every nook & cranny waiting from the calm after the storms, and we are still waiting!!

The mix of humidity, moisture and longer daylight hours have convinced the seedlings that it’s time to mature with healthy gusto, the problem I face is the sometimes heavy rain and strong winds  is bending the tender stalks in two then snapping the stems.

I am urgently collecting used plastic pop bottles as I want to use them with the bottoms cut off and position the bottle over the newly planted seedling.

My idea is to leave the top of the bottles intact,  removing only the cap in the hope the curved sides will deflect wind and rain, but let in enough moisture and air to keep the seedlings protected until the weather improves.

The bottles will also act as a natural glasshouse and keep the roots and tender lower leaves warm so they can continue to grow strong and not be stunted by the cold air.

However, the  weather isn’t the only obstacle this year, it’s seems the slugs and snails are out in force consuming seedlings, my paper identifications and anything else they can get.

Now it’s WAR!!

As the seedlings cannot wait any longer they need to be in the ground to spread their roots and mature, the plastic bottles will go some way to providing a barrier against the slugs and snails, but, believe me I doubt it will really deter them as they are HUGE and can travel, climb very quickly indeed!

I can remember reading somewhere that one elderly lady in the early 1800′s recommended using slugs and snails to improve your tennis forhand or backhand by seeing just how far you can dispatch them over the Kitchen garden walls!!

Since I don’t have a raquet,  I have employed plastic drink bottles, beer bottles half buried, a twice daily collection of slugs & snails which I feed to very fat chickens and Milly our resident duck!!

For all of you undergoing the same problems as me, I have written a couple of FREE guides to help:

1) How to manage potted seedlings, this explains strategies I have used to good effect looking after more than 200 seedlings

2) How to naturally control slugs and snails.

Please use them and your comments, tips, inventions and ideas would be welcome.

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