It was all going so well. My plan this year was to get from mid April to October without having to buy any lettuce. After an inspirational day with Charles Dowding, the salad growing guru, I even harboured ideas of winter lettuce. Gone would be the bag of soggy salad leaves with all the verve and vigour of a teenager in the morning. We would be self-sufficient in lettuce and leaves; that shouldn’t be too hard. In the past it’s been my organisation, or lack of it, that has let me down. Starting off well, I then forget to keep up with the sowing regime for the holy grail of successional crops and, inevitably there ends up being a gap.
This year would be different and it really would have been, if it hadn’t been for the slugs and snails. It started well with harvests of ‘Freckles’, ‘Rubens’, ‘Dazzler and ‘Little Gem’ all from the plot. I was priding myself on how organised I was being by sowing some trays of salad leaves before we went on holiday, in June, so that these would follow on from those at the allotment. I prefer to grow salad leaves in containers at home. I did try them in the ground last year but they were quickly infiltrated by weeds and at one point it was hard to distinguish what was weed and what was edible leaf.
Well they say pride comes before a fall and, whilst my organisation skills may have improved, my ability to protect my salad leaves from slug attack hasn’t. Three troughs and a large pot have all been annihilated. One container was 6ft off the ground, for heaven’s sake. All I can say is slugs must have an incredible sense of smell. They even bypassed hostas to climb the equivalent of a mountain to them, to dine out on my specialist Italian salad leaf mix. The tiny seedlings which had appeared just before we went on holiday had gone by our return.
I’ve resown twice and moved the containers but each time, just as I see little green shoots emerging, they disappear just as quickly. Strangely lettuce on the plot hasn’t been touched, thanks I can only think to the resident song thrushes and blackbirds but in recent weeks with warmer weather my plot salads have bolted and now reside on the compost heap.
Plot lettuces
And so, with a sense of guilt and disappointment a bag of salad leaves and some cos lettuce made its way into the shopping trolley at the weekend. I never expected to be self-sufficient when I took on the plot but I think because lettuce is so easy to grow that I should at least be able to achieve it with them. We had some non-gardening friends stay with us back in June and when we were preparing food they kept asking what was from the plot and it felt a little embarrassing that so little of it was from there. Similarly, looking in the trolley at the weekend I did think we should be buying less vegetables in August. Surely the plot should be providing more. I’ve accepted that without a greenhouse and living in the damp west of Britain with perfect blight conditions that tomatoes are a lost cause. Carrots are impossible on the carrot-fly ridden allotment and although I’ve had tasty baby carrots grown in containers at home these were never going to mean I could stop buying carrots over the summer. The courgettes have been slow to get going and I’m by no means inundated. I’m actually missing my courgette glut. Peppers, and aubergines both need the extra warmth of a greenhouse. I had about a month supply of new potatoes but don’t want to devote more space to spuds.
My plot growing is still in its infancy, as this is only my second season, so some of it is learning what is most productive and easy to grow but it’s also accepting that the veg growing portrayed by the glossy gardening magazines isn’t always the reality that the majority of us experience. Just as with other aspects of the media constantly showing us images of what constitutes perfection, the immaculate house, the flawless body, the most desirable products there is a danger of ‘growing your own’ becoming another element of our lives where we feel we have to live up to ideas of perfection. There is an immense feeling of satisfaction when I can cook a meal from the plot but to do this is difficult to achieve over a sustained period. Perhaps the disparity between the portrayal of fruit and veg growing in the media and the actuality of it is one of the reasons why many new allotment holders hand back their plots after a few years. The idea of the River Cottage type utopia is very enticing but the reality is somewhat different.
I have salad seedlings on the go and I’m keeping a close eye out for further slug attacks but whilst I wait for them to achieve an edible size I guess I shouldn’t feel guilty that my plans didn’t quite come to fruition.
wellywoman 
Oh I know the feeling well. It all started well enough – baby leaves for us, thinnings for the hens, then bigger leaves and damaged leaves for the hens. But the second sowings fell prey to slugs, and the tomatoes were lost to botrytis before even blight could put paid to them.
As for slugs – alarming doesn’t cover it! I don’t know whether we have the dreaded Spanish slugs, but I’m happy to say we have Leopard slugs, which are carnivorous. In fact, last night Howard was out in the garden with his head torch on watching a leopard slug devour a regular black garden slug. The downside of leopard slugs is the gunky residue of their kill.
My pond was full of tadpoles earlier, and now my garden is teeming with tiny froglets. Hopefully enough will make it through to control slugs next year.
I’ve written off this season, and decided to start to prepare for next year. OK, I have second season potatoes, late salad crops and some quick growing oriental greens which will tide us over in part, but the next four weeks will be more about preparing for the new gardening year, which for me starts with the Autumn Equinox in September.
Hi Blueshed, I’m nurturing quite a lot of autumn and winter salad crops on the windowsill at the moment. Once they’re big enough they can go out at the plot. This year I have gone for more winter veg too with leeks, broccoli, kale and spring greens so I’m looking forward to seeing how all that does.
Hopefully all those frogs will go some way to controlling your slug population. 🙂
This is the hard truth! Bob Flowerdew had an explanation as to why pot grown transplants are eaten whereas plot sown aren’t – to do with damaging the leaves and therefore giving off the strong smell of their whereabouts! But yours were still in the pot so this isn’t the reason. This year has been a very bad one for slugs and snails in the UK so you aren’t to blame.
I think to be self-sufficient is a full time job; regardless of the media hype. What is really worth growing are soft fruits that cost the earth and don’t transport well (so are never as good from the shops), but man can’t live by raspberries alone! Don’t be down hearted, you’re had lots of success. Grow what you like, what you like that’s expensive and things that you can’t buy easily. Tomatoes and the Mediterranean vegetables are never going to give you a huge crop, they’re grown because we like a challenge. In a year like this one has been for British growers the challenge is even greater. There is nothing like the taste of fruit and veg we’re grown ourselves but it is rarely the cheap option! Christina
Hi Christina, My soft fruits have been brilliant this year and the autumn fruiting raspberries are just starting to get going but like you say you can’t eat fruit all the time. I guess I’m just learning what works best for us at the moment still. I’ve grown some purple podded peas because I liked the look of them and they were recommended by quite a few books but they’ve been pretty rubbish with such minuscule yields I won’t bother with them again. WW
So sad about the slugs, but cover your carrots with enviromesh held up with blue water pipe hoops-works wonders! Also you could try copper tape on your pots to give the slugs a real shock!
Hi Jen, The plot is so ridden with carrot fly that they even seem to get under the mesh. 2 guys up there have carrots swathed in the stuff and their carrots still have the tell-tale tunnelling marks on the roots. I’m considering nematodes for next year in the war against slugs.
It has been a really difficult and dispiriting year for growing food and my experience mirrors yours in many ways. There are new people on my allotment site who I can tell have lost heart. I just hope they will persevere because every year is different and more skills are developed the more one keeps at it. I resisted photographing my plot for Allotment Week since it’s a sea of blue mesh and poly tunnels to keep the pigeons off. I have learned that this is the only way I can hope to get winter crops. TV and magazine articles rarely show vegetables with protective covers they simply show row upon row of healthy un-blemished produce.
My brassicas have been under enviromesh since planted out and have still been got by caterpillars. I did speak to someone on the plot who said he had seen the butterflies sat onto of the mesh and then discovered eggs several days later as if they had laid them and they had fallen through the tiny holes onto the brassicas. No fleece in a garden or plot photo is the gardening equivalent of airbrushing!
Have you ever tried Charles Dowding’s method of constantly picking the outer leaves off the lettuce, so they continue growing? I never have, but always mean to.
We’ve had an awful year of slug damage and lettuces bolting, too. Glad to know it’s not just me.
I agree with you, those neat, beautiful self-sufficient plots are much harder to achieve than it seems.
Thanks for the blog.
Hi Amanda, I use that technique on my lettuces and it is very effective. I managed to get 3 months or so of pickings but they will still bolt eventually. You should give it a try though.
Hi WW. Nil desperandum. Maybe completely reconsider what to grow? Swiss Chard is tough & not much loved by slugs. Ideal August veg. Fennel? I never thought it would do with me, but it does. And white turnips – you seldom see them in shops because they go woody so fast. But grow your own and they are great! Plus peas taste completely different. I gave up on lettuce long ago – ditto all brassicas.
Thanks Kininvie, I’ve got some fennel on the go. I have a patch of chard which is useful wilted in a filo pastry and feta pie and I often put it in frittatas. My peas and broad beans have been great but have finished cropping so I might do a later sowing of them next year. Thanks for the tip on baby turnips will consider them for next year.
It sounds as if you have had lots of success in spite of your slugs, snails, carrot fly etc. It must be disheartening when everything gets spoiled by your enemies and then the weather doesn’t help either. I swear by copper tape round cut off lemonade bottles to keep the slugs away fom my veg, it certainly works for me. I didn’t use them for my courgettes, and what a mess they are, eaten and rotten- horrible!
Hi Pauline, Thanks for the copper tape bottle tips. I may also try nematodes next year.
Don’t despair you’ll get there in the end. This is my fourth year and although their have been problems with the drought, it is the best yet. Persevere and you’ll slowly learn how to get the best out of your plot and what grows best for you. If you can’t grow lettuce try something else. Relax, enjoy your small successes and don’t give up.
Thanks Chris, We do eat a lot of lettuce which is why I’m so determined to grow it. I’ll get there 😉
Oh, my sympathies, so dispiriting. This self sufficiency myth is just that for most of us, life – and weather, not to mention slugs – always get in the way. Celebrating triumphs and dealing philosophically with disasters seem to be essential skills with this growing lark, as much so as sowing thinly and weeding regularly! At least you now know you can do the organised thing, so maybe if next year is less challenging for anyone trying to grow edibles you will find yourself with little to know trolley guilt. For me, last year, it was my failure to be self sufficient in stir fry veg, my Pak Choi bolted and the cabbage whites got most of the other oriental leaves. I have my fingers crossed for the sowings I have made here, the first leaves are showing, so now it is between me and slugs as to who will get to eat what!
Thanks Janet, Strangely more so called difficult crops such as celeriac and fennel are doing well. I guess that only compounds the lettuce failure when they should be so easy. My autumn salads though are coming along. I’m now doing night-time raids on slugs in an attempt to reduce the numbers slightly.
The best laid plans eh! My Lettuce efforts were a disaster this year too. Not slugs, the Lettuce just kept going to seed on me. Luckily I am able to buy organic salad bags locally. Maybe I’ll try some winter Lettuce.
Frustrating isn’t it? At least you have a good supply of organic salad locally. My autumn and winter salads are doing ok at the moment so hopefully they’ll be more of a success.
You have made me feel so much better! I had ONE lovely crop of salad leaves and then the slugs and snails found my garden. I tried the Hanging Gardens technique, still they ate every tiny shoot. Now I see it wasn’t just me! Whew! : )
Hi Debs, No it’s not just you but don’t give up. I’m a great believer in perseverance. I did a slug collection with a bucket of salt water last night. Disgusting but necessary. I WON’T BE BEATEN 😉
I gave up on salad leaves weeks ago. I haven’t harvested a single leaf this year, slug damage has just been so bad. Thankfully, it’s not a crop I grow a lot of as there’s only me who eats it, so I don’t feel so downhearted about it, unlike the beans which we use loads of and I haven’t managed a harvest yet. I’d got the freezer stacked up with runner beans and French beans by this time last year, it doesn’t look as though I’ll have anything put by for winter this year.
Hi Jo, I don’t normally do much freezing other than fruit so I’mm ok on that front. My french beans have picked up in the last week and are giving us enough for a few meals a week so I can’t complain. We can only hope next year will be better and start planning for that.
I sowed several lots of lettuce which either didn’t germinate or got slugged so I gave up as I’m not that fussed. xx
Having worked with teenagers for years I had to laugh at your description of “the bag of soggy salad leaves with all the verve and vigour of a teenager in the morning”. Salad pickings have been decidedly thin on the ground here too WW and I wish that I had sown some leaves at home where I can go out nightly torchlit molluscs patrols. This allotment business is certainly hard work but this has been an exceptionally difficult year. A couple of plot holders on our site have worked their plots for 30 plus years and both have said that it has been the most challenging year they have known so we can take some heart 🙂
Thanks Anna, I’ve started doing torch lit slug patrols in the hope I can keep them off my autumns salad leaves. So far so good.
Hell no, you shouldn’t feel any guilt!! You are doing an amazing job of managing an allotment and I am learning myself that some things work out, others don’t. We should choose to smile about the stuff that works and try a different approach next year for the stuff that doesn’t. I share your slug pain but seem to do ok with cut and come again lettuce grown on the kitchen windowsill or on a top shelf in the greenhouse. Maybe you could surround your lettuce on the allotment with a wide beer moat?! Good luck
In all the years I’ve been gardening-and that’s maaaany years!-I’ve never seen so many slugs and soo big-are they mutating with this cruddy weather? any slugologists out there?
Strangely the plot is fine the birds are managing the slugs up there. It’s my garden that is the problem, too many places for them to hide. But I’ve stepped up night time patrols with my torch and salt water bucket.
Glad the birds are working hard for you! I hadn’t thought about using salt water for them but it makes sense. I’ve been putting most of mine in the green bin for council compost. Maybe I’m passing on the slug problem or maybe they get squished into compost?
As you can see from all your comments on this post it has struck a chord for most people. Everyone has struggled this year, its been our main talking point. I don’t think I’ll ever be self-sufficient and sometimes I do feel guilty when I shop for veg but we shouldn’t. It seems to me every year is different something that worked well one year will be a disaster the next, but I guess each year we will be tweaking our techniques and adapting to the conditions. I think like me you have only had your plot a couple of years so I think we are still adjusting to the conditions (thats my excuse anyway). Though I’ve had an allotment before the conditions were completely different. Trouble is there is such a small window of opportunity for sowing some things and if a whole batch of seedlings get eaten you have to sow again and that delays things!
By the way from your previous posts your cutting garden has been a huge success this year so at least you haven’t had to have the guilt of buying flowers!
I sympathise with your plight. I do get a bit annoyed by “celebrity veg gardens”, as I know fully well they have an army of hired help to keep those gardens going. I do think they create a false image to those of us that don’t have the extra resources they do…
I understand that looking at photos of beautiful gardens is more appealing than ones with fleece strewn everywhere but it does give an unrealistic image of gardening. Still most of us realise that which is what is important.
I agree Anna-you’ll never see a TV garden full of weeds-I started with great intentions but the weather beat me-not to mention the slugs, snails and those bloody rabbits! Then the magpies and crows moved in and destroyed what they couldn’t eat-it’s a good job I love my garden or I’d give up!
Let me join in with the others to reassure you it’s been a terrible year to grow your own…
Back in March I dared to predict a harvest from my crop planting plan/spreadsheet and all I can say is at least the chickens are still laying eggs each day!
Well done for being honest, it’s easy to just write about what works rather than what doesn’t, keep on keeping on 😉
Sara
http://www.HenCorner.com
Hi Sara, Thank you. That’s why blogging is so good. It can give the true picture of what growing your own is like. I understand that magazines want to give us beautiful pictures and images of pristine gardens but it isn’t the full story. You had a spreadsheet too, that’s good to know. I’m hoping at the moment I can get at least one uchiki kuri squash from my first year. Not exactly self sufficient, still it’s fun 😉
Yep, I had hoped, again, for a melon this year but no luck!
We did get an aubergine (another on my wish list) and the ultimate is yet to come: a jar of almonds in honey!!!!
That’ll be a blog post… 😉