Slug-Free Lettuce – 3 Weeks Growth

Lettuce in wooden seed trays

One of my new year resolutions was to have Slug-Free Lettuce. For the past two years every time I try to grow lettuce in my plots, slugs from miles around arrive to munch on it. So I have given up with trying to grow it on my plots but definitely not given up on growing lettuce.

Here’s my solution – grow it in seed trays in the mini greenhouse and so far so good.

I decided to buy some wooden seed trays so they would look nice in the mini greenhouse. They do until they come into contact with water and heat and then the bottom slightly buckles a bit, but there are still holding the soil and seedlings so I’m not complaining and most importantly it has been a slug free zone.

Here’s the varieties of Loose Leaf Lettuce I am growing:-

Lettuce – Belize
A green oakleaf type with bright and slightly bubbled leaves. It is resistant to aphids, mildew and bolting.

Lettuce – Oakleaf
A dark green leaf tinged with red to bring a bit of brightness to my salad. Large lobbed leaves and is resistant to bolting.

Lettuce – Salad Bowl
A curly edged bright green leaf, a popular choice.

Other Posts on Topics – Slugs and Lettuce:

• Summer Lettuce (Balmoral) 2008 – 13 weeks then eaten by slugs!
• Summer Lettuce (Tin Tin) 2007.
• Pest Control – Slugs and Snails

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• Growing Slug-Free Lettuce

Cucumber Harvest and Glut

Its the first time I’ve grown cucumbers (marketmore) this year outdoors and I am very impressed with the results. I do love cucumber but I am the only one in my house that does so apart from having cucumber salad every day I was hoping to find other ways of using cucumber.

When there’s a glut I usually eagerly wait for another veggy blog on my google reader to post some recipe ideas and hey presto Greenfolks came in on target – thanks for that. Here is the recipe for Cucumber, Pepper and Onion Relish.

Below are a few other recipes to use up your cucumber gluts:-

• Val’s Recipe for Cucumber and Pepper Relish,
• Cucumber and Green Tomato Relish Recipe,
• Joanna’s Cucumber and Mint Salad,
• Jo’s award winning Cucumber Pickle Recipe at the Cottage Smallholder,
• Cooking with Cucumbers Recipes by the Cucumber Growers Association,
• BBC Good Food – Cucumber Recipes,
• Preserving Equipment and Jars – UK.

Also Harvesting on my plot this week:-

• New potatoes – charlotte and lady christl,
• Gardener’s Delight tomatoes,
• Lettuce Balmoral.

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• Cucumber Harvest and Glut

Tomato’s, Cucumbers, Peppers and Sunflowers on the Deck

I potted on my Tomato’s (golden sunrise or green zebra) and Cucumbers (marketmore) last week and wanted to place them on the decking to get the most amount of sun possible. However under the decking in the dark only coming out at night or in heavy rainfall lurk the slimy ones. Those creatures who shall remain nameless are becoming almost celebrity status with all the press coverage recently (Daily Mail article 18.06.08).

I did a bit of recycling with my old 3 tier mini greenhouse. I broke apart the unit so that the 3 shelves and racks were separate. I laid down some old fleece onto the decking to stop the blighters from coming up in between the decking. Then I placed the racking down onto the fleece and the tomatos and cucumbers onto the racking.

Of course I’m thinking theres no way a slug can climb that racking (all that slime and no grip on thin metal squares), so prey tell me how the bloomin hell do they manage to get in the pots? mind you I think it has fooled some of the less energetic ones as I’ve only found a few evil knievel slugs so far.

And lets check on the sweet peppers:

And finally the household Sunflower competition.

My dad gave us some sunflower seeds he received free in his local newspaper a year ago. I’ve only just got round to sowing them so I made a bit of a competition out of it between me and my other half. We sowed 2 seeds each and they will be going into the flower border soon so here are the results so far:

Tracey’s on the left and Colin’s on the right. At the moment and rightly so being the gardener of the house, I definitely have a slight lead by a few centimeters.
(I’m ignoring the cries of its a fix from the workshop!)

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• Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Peppers and Sunflowers on the Deck

Mini Greenhouse – Update on Seedling Progress

I’m still having some organisation issues with the lack of space in my mini greenhouse. I know its my own fault I have 13 cucumber seedlings potted on and I’m the only one who eats cucumber in my household however I can’t bear to give up any seedlings. Also I have let a few flower seedling trays creep into the greenhouse this year as our garden borders are in desperate need of brightening up. (they have had a distinct lack of attention due to my vegetable plot). So I have a bit of a juggling act on my hands!

This weekend I have planted out the 3 calabrese plants into plot 3.

Potted on 1st batch of february Tomato ‘unknown’ seedlings into larger pots.

Potted on Broccoli (tenderstem) seedlings

Somehow I think I have planted too many Broccoli and Calabrese seeds (this might be adding to my storage issues!):

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• Mini Greenhouse – Update on Seedling Progress

Mini Greenhouse Stock-take

Yesterday I made sowings of Calabrese, broccoli tenderstem, runner and french beans and summer cabbages in pots and root-trainers for the mini greenhouse. As per my other post I already potted on my cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes and now my mini greenhouse is very full with not much space to spare.

I had a bit of a sort out and cleared out the bottom row which was being used as storage for pots and trays. Whilst I had all the trays out on the table I thought it would be a good idea to do a stock-take to record what trays of vegetables and flowers I have so far, so I might be able to keep track of them all. So here goes:

Here’s what’s in my mini greenhouse on 19.04.08:

Vegetables
All vegetables (apart from peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers) will be transplanted into the raised beds when they have grown on a bit, space has been made in the plots and when the signs of frost have passed.

Potted on Cucumbers, Peppers and Tomatoes

Today I was mostly potting on Cucumbers (marketmore), Sweet Peppers (romano mixed) and Tomato (unknown) – could either be Golden Sunrise or Green Zebra but I forgot to label it so its pot luck what I have!

How to Pot on Seedlings

Tools Required:

• Shuttle Trays with 9cm pots, (I bought mine from Poundstretcher/Instore for £1.99 per tray) or similar,
• Multi-purpose compost
• Sieve,
• Dibber and Widger,
• Watering Can,
• Plant Labels and Pen.