Article submitted by Anthea

The most important thing I learned about growing vegetables is when I read “Plants actually want to grow” and, although this is obvious, it made me think that I must do my best to let them grow to their full potential.

One method I found worked very well, after finding that my cabbages, broccoli and cauliflowers had so many holes in their leaves, due to slugs, was to go out after dark with a torch and a trowel and a bucket and collect the slugs that were speeding (!!!) towards my vegetables. Every night I collected many of them (sometimes as many as a hundred a night) and disposed of them in my green recycling container. I do not like putting slug killer down as we have so many birds who are doing their best to find slugs and snails so I save all my coffee grounds and spread those around the plants as a deterrent. Sharp sand also helps as the slugs do not like to cross it. I also have some copper strips which I lay at the side of the rows and these help too as the slugs do not like to cross them.

We had a wonderful harvest of brassicas starting last summer and we are still picking sprouts, cabbages and broccoli just from a few packets of seeds sown last spring. I did grow them indoors in boxes first and then hardened them off and planted them out and it worked very well indeed.