Unidentified yellow insects on cucumber...[SOLVED]

I know what many insects are and I like to think I'd be able to spot any normal pests in the UK.
However I've seen these things quite a bit in the greenhouse every year - they don't seem to do any obvious damage but can be quite numerous.

I know you're thinking "APHID!" but it's not. It's a fast moving yellow dot, around 1mm, they don't get any bigger and they don't stay still long enough to suck sap. They remind me a bit of mites but I only see six legs and not a mitey shape.

To the naked eye they're just a yellow dot.

I'm guessing from the constant movement that they might be predatory?

Update: We have a positive ID - they are Globular Springtails. Who knew. There's not much about them but they're not a pest directly so I'll leave them be.

Slugs and sharp gravel - does it work as a deterrent?

No.

Maybe.

But no.

Can you spot the slug?

Slugs seem to be able to cross anything - I've even seen them walking up the netting pictured. Gravel doesn't seem impassable to them, although they may not like it. 

As one of a series of measures it may help - but does it act like a barrier that slugs are unable to cross? Categorically no. 

Next experiment will be copper tape. After that - sticky back velcro. 

Dealing with slugs organically without slug pellets - not an easy task

Slugs. Nothing quite destroys plants like slugs can. They are so indiscriminately destructive to plants and advance like an army out of nowhere, it's easy to reach for the big guns and pellet the garden.

However, while I do drop the odd pellet strategically on non-edible areas, I do it only sparsely and I'm not sure it even works. The real battle for me is not fought with pellets. It's fought with scissors.

Now let me make one thing clear - it's a disgusting job. And not one done for personal enjoyment, nor is it for everyone, but the thing about slugs is, they've got to be killed somehow. You can't relocate them, you can't donate them to the local shelter, and you can't leave them be - unless you don't want any vegetables. It comes down to a grim choice of, well, how exactly do you want to kill them.

I don't find salt humane in any way - I've watched slugs in salt and it doesn't look pleasant. Drowning doesn't seem so great either, they spend a lot of time trying to escape and honestly, they often manage to, which defeats the purpose somewhat. Beer traps even less so - slugs can climb up almost anything, I tried the beer trap and one slug fell in which could have been considered a success but for the fact I went out one night and saw quite some number using it as a free bar. If you aren't looking at your beer traps at midnight then you aren't seeing how well they're "working"!

Out of all the options, for me, snipping them in two seems the least offensive way of dispatching of them, although it does initially seem quite disgusting. This way also they can stay in the food chain - they're not poisoned or salty and they're available to eat by any birds or animals that wish to.

So - I tend to arm myself with three things - some tongs to remove the slugs from plants so they don't make a disgusting mess, a torch, and scissors or shears if you don't want to get up close.

Initially I did feel quite disgusted with myself for the indiscriminate massacre of what must have been hundreds of slugs in a single night, but, you get used to it. Or perhaps just hardened to it. At the end of the day it's a matter of veg or no veg, they would happily destroy your entire crop - in fact it's not even a would, they will and do. So - as a gardener we have to sometimes do gross things and we have to kill a lot of creatures one way or another.

The important thing for me is that I do it manually and don't resort to pellets or worse. I don't believe in killing anything that doesn't need to be killed, and I don't believe in chemical solutions unless they're the only option.

Have I won though? No. Not yet. The battle against slugs is a combination of hiding things from them (raising plants up, creating barriers, etc) and removing them. Attracting frogs with a pond hasn't worked out so well - I have the pond but no frogs yet.

I'm still thinking about nematodes but I don't know, I might try, I might not. I don't really like the idea, although I can't justify why. I'm most certainly not averse to biological controls - in fact I use them regularly with amblyseieus which I have written about. We'll see I guess.

I guess later I'll talk about how many aphids I've squished. It's not really aphid season yet though.

A day of potting up

 Today being one of those days where it's sunny enough to get stuff done, and a Sunday. Most of the day was spent potting up. Namely cucumbers, tomatoes, chillies (a couple of last year's overwintered chillies are now in enormous pots!), I think that's about it for potting up.

In other news...First up! A very cheeky bird I'm told is a Jay, no less than 2 feet away, I've not seen these before in the garden although I'm also told they're common. Normally we just get those annoying pigeons...

Broad beans, I'm being ultra lazy with them this year, I'm just growing them through a shelf from greenhouse staging. Will it provide enough support? Probably! 

Coriander has sprouted in the greenhouse, I was worried it might not due to low temperatures, but it looks just fine! 

Random fish photo. They have grown over winter. 

Now, carrot problem. I always have these problems with seeds but these were plants I bought as seedlings. There's too many of them too close together. Separating them made all manner of ripping sounds, we'll have to see how it goes. 

 I replanted the separated surplus ones in this bed below...just to left of centre if you can see - they don't look happy at all. I guess we'll have to see. I'm not that bothered. I've never had much success with carrots. 

The peas in this bed are doing well though, looking messy but I think they'll work out OK. They're mostly of the sugar snap / mange tout type so we should be seeing harvests soon! 

This year is definitely the year of the pea. This bed was actually acquired from IKEA and it's a bit shallow for me, but it seems to be working fine for peas and beans so far. I don't think it has particularly good drainage though, it has a solid base. 

Final note for today: Garden centres amuse me. The larger a plant grows, the lower the price. I suppose space is a premium but this was a win for me. I'm somewhat apathetic about where or how I get plants with regard to growing vs buying plants. I always grow tomatoes and cucumbers from seed myself, but if I see some I like, especially grafted ones, I will pick them up. Grafted plants are definitely for another episode though. Because that's a whole different can o' worms..

Changes afoot...

Last time I wrote in this blog was a good while ago, and the reason I stopped is because I had less to say about chillies and more to say about vegetable gardening in general.
So after a long time mulling it over, the decision has been made. The blog has been refocused. I'm now writing a veg gardening blog. Which includes chillies, naturally.

Much has progressed in the garden. I now have two greenhouses although one was nearly destroyed in winds this year, it's really a glorified tent but it does the job, or has done for two seasons anyway. I also have raised beds outdoors - yes - finally I've embraced the idea of growing plants outside. More on that later.

A few things to document today though - a grey and very wet day, but a chance to go through a couple of this years' promising plants..

If you can't figure out what these are - you are not alone. Kohl Rabi! They look (or should look) like some crazy evolution of pokemon Still waiting for that, the stem needs to swell. They're sort of radishy things.

The grafted "mini stars" cucumbers from suttons seeds always comes out first in the cucumber world. I always pick a couple up because the yield is amazing. 

Carrots. Never grown before. Well, not successfully anyway. 

That's enough for now anyway. Peas and beans later, and tomatoes I suppose. And an interesting tale about overwintering chillies!

More Biological Control - Thrip Predators! (Amblyseius cucumeris) On Chilli Plants

Since the thrips are back, and the "thripinator" apparently doesn't work on them at all, I am bored of their damage to plants, and I'm bored of seeing them on my fruits - albeit they havent actually damaged any fruits yet.

Say Hi to Steve. Yes, I named him before squashing him.

Apparently - thrip levels have to get above "40 per plant" to be seriously destructive, below that they're just annoying. 

So, other than the aluminium mulch, and picking them off by hand (sellotape works REALLY well by the way!), I thought I'd try something different. Meet the mites!

These are predatory mites Amblyseius cucumeris. I first encountered these with broad mites, though I didnt use them in the end.

The sachets, acquired from Just Green in the UK, contain a feed and eggs, so the mites hatch at a fairly regulated level, apparently around 400 per week, for 6 weeks. They recommend one sachet per plant, though the manufacturer implies a level of one per 3 plants should be enough.

I have to say, this all looks very promising - but we'll see!

Biological pest control can be fun and cheap - fungus gnats controlled with carnivorous plants!

People seem to really hate fungus gnats - those little flies that hang around the soil on your plants and fly up when you water or touch the pots. They are an annoyance and they do apparently eat the roots of plants, but I've never had much of a problem with them. Because for me, they're FOOD.

No, no, I don't eat them. Probably taste like wafer though, most small flies do. Don't ask me how I know this. Back to the point - carnivorous plants..

For Fungus Gnats

Best things at eating these critters is butterwort (pinguicula) or sundew (drosera). The easiest ones to not kill are mexican butterwort and cape sundew. They need a lot of light and heat - what a coincidence - so do chillies.

Cape Sundew - waiting for flies! 

The great advantage with these plants is they are literally nature's fly-paper. They also digest the flies so you don't have to do much maintenance. They grow new leaves so you dont have to buy more, and they are very low maintenance. All they need is the soil to be kept damp (yes very damp, way damper than chillies, they're a bog plant!) and sun - lots of sun.

Cape Sundew (or at least I think it is..!)

The pinguicula is even better - it's a total gnat magnet, and it divides and conquers!

I divided my pinguicula up - I bought it a year ago for £3ish, largely ignored it, then yesterday noticed there were MANY rosettes - you can split them out. I ended up with no less than TWELVE individual potted plants. That's a lot. From one plant.

12 Pinguiculas!

How quickly do they catch flies? Well, after division, I hosed the plants down so all the flies came off. Next day I put one of the new plants into the greenhouse and within just one minute...

OM NOM NOM...!

Soil requirements - this is important - ALL carnivorous plants (to my knowledge) are used to having poor soil, when I say poor I mean it's specifically bad. I buy carnivorous plant soil so I dont have to worry about mixing it. Seriously - if you get even SOME fertiliser in the mix, the plants rot away. Apparently. 

So instead of using various chemicals to solve your fungus gnat problem - give nature a go. You may be very surprised to see how effective it is. 

For houseflies, wasps, etc...

These are bigger insects and need bigger traps - you probably know about the venus fly trap, well it will work here but they are a pain to keep and notoriously die within a year. Easier to keep are plants like the pitcher plant or sarracenia.

The flies slip in and can't climb out - it's that simple!