Snail trouble

For the previous two seasons we've been lucky enough not to suffer too much from slugs & snails. I think this is partly because the beds we've been cultivating have been cut into closely mown grass & have been rather bare & rather inhospitable to molluscs. But now there's year round cover on the plots & so the little horrors have places to hide, from which they emerge to devour our seedlings.

Here's a courgette we've just planted to replace one that the slugs ate earlier:

One of the multicrop sowings has been doing well, here the different varieties are mainly brassicas, but there's some chard in there too:

Multicrop in foreground, blue phacelia flowers to right, broad beans under hazel wigwam to rear

The other multicrop sowing has been hit hard by slugs & snails. As you can see in the photo above, we've put our bean wigwams in place ~ the hazel rods have lasted quite well from last year.

We've planted french beans on the wigwams, hopefully these will establish quickly before our slimy friends can guzzle them:

Here's a picture of one of our perennial beds, the globe artichoke to the rear is looking particularly magnificent:

Globe artichoke to rear, lettuces (red & green) in foreground with rhubarb to right; rocket flowers in midground