Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The overprotective mother

It's me. Nearly every time I let babies out on their own in the garden, nasty, malevolent, hungry critters (almost definitely slugs and caterpillars) eat them. I've even lost an entire parsley plant this week and I'd never noticed a problem with predators and parsley in the past. The non-transplanted seedlings are doing fine in the seedling area though, in their little pots. I've got some up higher on the old school desk, but they're are surviving pretty well on the ground as well.

So the next transplanting round won't be until my seedlings are so well established that root bound-ness becomes their biggest issue. Not everything is germinating but the brassicas are and they are caviar to slugs as far as I can see (or chocolate ice cream or prime steak or whatever makes you salivate and tuck in fast). The other predator is my daughter - she is responsible for a number of casualties from the seedling area. I've even considered getting a playpen to put the seedlings in to protect them from her.

2 comments:

Rach said...

Now here's an idea.....put the baby in the playpen;-) (sorry, feeling cheeky, couldn't resist, especially after blogging about playpens only yesterday)

Sandra said...

baby in the playpen?? Is that what they're for? But I'm not worried about the baby's safety, I'm worried about my plants. I ended up transplanting tonight's feverfew casualty. Favourite Handyman thinks he can run me up something with chickenwire in the weekend.

A friend's mother, when she had four young children and had had enough, would put herself and the sewing machine in the play pen, children outside of it, and sew for the afternoon. She said it made her feel much better.