Collateral damage

Not good news I'm afraid - despite my radish, beets and cabbages all starting to spring up in the greenhouse, I've had a visit two nights in a row from a rogue gastropod. The radishes are being systematically picked off... 

So frustrating - what's more, is I've turned the drill upside down, around, had a good inspection of the greenhouse and cannot spot the slug/snail anywhere - as soon as I do though, there's not going to be any mercy - it's going straight to one of the chickens. 

I've not really had a problem with them before in the greenhouse, but I guess with the wet weather, they are finding it easier to make the climb up the sides to where the seedlings are. It's a battle of wills, and I may pop out last thing tonight with a torch to see if I can catch him in the act...

And now, a few oddities that have arisen in the back garden - a freak show, for your viewing pleasure, if you will...:

My dwarf beans - a couple of plants that I was growing (but failed to train up canes through moderate ineptitude) have developed curled bean pods. They look like those dangly earrings from the 80's! Can't think why they have done this... perhaps keeping their feet out of the mud and mire below...?

I have a couple of mushrooms growing in my old pea plant pot - I'm not going to eat them, but would be interested to know the classification if anyone has any ideas? I guess with the wet humid weather, mushroom foragers across the land are in for some rich pickings.

This mottling has happened each year I have grown broad beans - I don't know whether it is just age, disease or both; or whether they are ant bites, as I seem to have a lot of them around the plants, and they are often climbing up and down them.

Despite the wear and tear, I did manage to pick a respectable handful of the pods from the plants. Remarkably unmarked in comparison to the plants...

 I think I probably picked the pods a little early - the beans were a fair size, but they could probably have waited another week or so to plump up... well, you live and learn.

Still, I made some chicken pittas last night with a vegetable salsa-type filling - to finish them off I fried the broad beans and sprinkled them inside. Rewarding to eat your own produce, however small a contribution it makes to your plate. I'm afraid I don't have a picture of the pittas, because we ate them too fast!

Overcoming the gastrop-odds

I'm a bit miffed if I'm honest.

I've visited the plot a few times recently, and whatever encouraging growth there was the previous time I visited has been stripped bare by slugs, snails and whatever else - despite best attempts to halt their progress with garlic water, slug traps and so on, the tender veg shoots are just getting devoured...

(From  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug) 

...and the rain just keeps coming and coming - my well tilled earth is becoming like a quagmire, and I'm feeling desperately concerned for anything in the ground that the seed packets advise shouldn't be overwatered.

Still, I'm not the sort of person to give up lightly, and to be honest if you are a gardener in the U.K. it is probably par for the course (can I hear an 'Amen'?). If you can't weather the downs you have no right to enjoy the ups... and I guess it makes it all the more rewarding in the end.

In fact, I'm feeling positively Churchillian about it - 'We'll fight them on the raised beds, we'll fight them in the greenhouses'... basically, they aren't going to win... even if I have to set up an entire moat of real ale around my plot and patrol by night with a headlamp and speargun!

So, I've got back to my mini greenhouse and sowed some more drills and pots with the veg seeds I have already sown a few weeks ago in the ground. I figure that if I can get some decent seedlings going and get them past the tender stage, they will stand a much better chance of dodging becoming breakfast or supper for the passing gastropods...

As well as the fennel, radish and beetroot, I have sown some spring onions (White Lisbon) and cabbage (Hispi F1). I will also be doing some kale, and perhaps also some broccoli or cauliflower thanks to some encouragement from Sue@G.L. Allotments the other day.