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2018 Season's Post Mortem and Best Practices

Hookahhead

Hookahhead

Active member
Apparently it comes in a variety of colors. Wouldn't be too bad to carry a roll in with you? Do you typically have issues with slugs at all? I could see them liking to hide in the tubing while they munch the stem..


wireloom-colors.jpg


https://www.electriduct.com/Colored-Wire-Loom.html
 
D

Dday391

Member
If you have to pick the popcorn, you didn't get enough plants in the ground./QUOTE]

I can't think of a better way to say it. Your summary here pretty much validated a lot of the things I was curious about when i read through Julians thread. Great job man congrats to a successful season and best wishes for the next one as well.
Click to expand...
 
neongreen

neongreen

Active member
Veteran
Over here the main problems we get are voles and slugs. 6mm hole size galvanized steel mesh cages (12" below soil and 12" above) stops the voles (and mice) from getting at the roots.

For the slugs I use 0.6mm copper sheet, cut into strips that are 100-150mm x ~20mm. They are long enough to wrap around the base of the stem of a large plant, and protect the plant from day 1 - if I strike outdoors I place the copper collars directly over where the seed has been planted, and the seeds grow up and through them. As the stem gains girth, the collar stretches without strangling the plant.

The only "chink in the amour" is when some plants have low branches that either touch the ground or surrounding vegetation, so you have to keep an eye out for that, but it's more a problem I've had with autos rather than photos. Other than that, I've found copper collars to be 100% effective at stopping slugs (and snails), and they can be used for many years. If I stake a plant I'll also use a collar to protect the stake too.

Get yourself some tin-snips to cut both the mesh and the copper.
 
TychoMonolyth

TychoMonolyth

Boreal Curing
neongreen said:
Over here the main problems we get are voles and slugs. 6mm hole size galvanized steel mesh cages (12" below soil and 12" above) stops the voles (and mice) from getting at the roots.

For the slugs I use 0.6mm copper sheet, cut into strips that are 100-150mm x ~20mm. They are long enough to wrap around the base of the stem of a large plant, and protect the plant from day 1 - if I strike outdoors I place the copper collars directly over where the seed has been planted, and the seeds grow up and through them. As the stem gains girth, the collar stretches without strangling the plant.

The only "chink in the amour" is when some plants have low branches that either touch the ground or surrounding vegetation, so you have to keep an eye out for that, but it's more a problem I've had with autos rather than photos. Other than that, I've found copper collars to be 100% effective at stopping slugs (and snails), and they can be used for many years. If I stake a plant I'll also use a collar to protect the stake too.

Get yourself some tin-snips to cut both the mesh and the copper.
Click to expand...

Yup. Overgrown weeds that touch the plant lead to snails in a few places. That's why I need to stringtrim more next season. We don't have many voles but we do have moles. Not many though.

Thanks for the tip. I just found this stuff to keep the snails at bay. (20'x5")
https://www.amazon.ca/FERMFAST-Copper-Mesh-Roll-oz/dp/B01EGNZ8IA/ref=asc_df_B01EGNZ8IA/
61n-UH8SeJL._SL1000_.jpg
 
TychoMonolyth

TychoMonolyth

Boreal Curing
Snail bait it is then.

If I only had a small grow I'd have nothing to lose trying it or a beer trap. But I can't imagine doing it around several hundred plants. A couple cases of beer belong in the fridge.
 
moritzst

moritzst

Active member
hey, watched a snail on copper, its groase :( they def dont like copper

skip the beer, its only attracting

there are no snails now on my plot but used those ankled plastic rings back then, they do well till plants are big enough

greez
 
Treevly

Treevly

Active member
1) I don't use blood meal, fish meal, or bone meal; thus I avoid coyotes, skunks, foxes, dogs, bobcats, and any other carnivore digging it up to find the dead thing in there. Substitutes must be used.
2) No wires or mouse baits for me. If a mouse can eat it, so can a vole or mole or any number of creatures I don't want to kill. I save bottle tops/caps and put broken bits of mothballs in each cap, and put three or four around each plant, not so near that rain will wash mothball into the plant's dirt. Cover each cap lightly with grass so as to not be visible by humans should they happen by. Also: capsicum, hot red chilli pepper powder: I sprinkle it in the same area before I put the mothballs down. Use one or two tablespoons per plant. To wild critters with sensitive noses, mothballs and chilli peppers smell like chemical warfare weapons. By the time the stuff has washed away or evaporated, the plants are big enough and not interesting. It's the freshly dug holes which they find interesting.
3) It is sometimes necessary to use a tree trimmer with a wooden pole extension, in order to trim overhanging trees branches and wild grapes. Something like this, with a broom-handle extension: https://************/trim-thing
Mind you, it's a difficult thing to explain if you're seen carrying it at 2 a.m... "Oh, I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd trim the forest a little bit."
 
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