Bees, Deer, Slugs & Beer

Behind the scenes of May

As with the beginnings of all horror films, I will start by painting the idyllic image of “what can go wrong? Everything seems fine” As we wandered the field with delight this month seeing the first mass arrival of bees back on the flowers, after a wet start to the year, It has been wonderful to see them back and buzzing around. Over the fence in the woodland and under the soil surface though the baddies were hiding ready to get the flowers ( I wish I could put a dramatic Dum, Dum, Dummmmm in here) yes folks the Deer are Back and the slugs are amassed for an attack. Might I suggest you have a cushion ready to hide your face from the scary sluggy bits before we reach the end of this article where we get to visit Nigel the local beekeeper and I get back to sowing my biennials in the serene calm of the tunnel.

Slugs are Barred

A topic that many growers have been dealing with this month in the UK the emergence of a tremendous number of slugs. The current warm wet conditions are the ideal conditions for plants to grow but sadly also the perfect conditions for slugs to emerge, just as we are like Deliveroo serving up their favourite food right on their doorstep. Slugs lay batches of eggs between 10-100 and they can lay up to 600 eggs per year! The ground where these sunflowers were planted had been covered over winter to allow the previous year’s plant material to rot and provide nutrients in the soil. Slugs love to feed off plant debris and the matting had ensured warmth and wetness for them, meaning I had indeed created the perfect lovenest for breeding slugs.