Hello! Well there certainly was some excitement this week when the rain finally stopped and the sun shone brightly for two days in a row! I celebrated by planting out most of my seedlings, including sweet pea, pumpkins and sunflowers. Now the fun part starts: keeping the slugs away!

I want to back up a tiny bit and talk about the seedlings. I’ve learned the hard way that the stems of pumpkin plants are fragile. One snap and that’s the end of the plant. My typical ‘flip the pot over’ into my hand ended in disaster last year. So I’m happy to report that there were no snapping of stems this year. The main reason is that I no longer flip them. 🙃 That’s just not the best way to get them out of their containers. It also helped to grow them on a couple of weeks longer, so they were definitely stronger.

The sweet pea were also started a tiny bit earlier this year. They grew long and leggy quite quickly, so I kept pinching them back which seemed to strengthen them and encouraged them to grow more stems.

The sunflowers were an interesting bunch. I have several different varieties, but they have not all grown equally well. I have my hunch as to which ones will perform the best – those that from very early on had multiple leaves and a strong stem – but I will give them all an equal shot!

The biggest issue I now face is that of slugs. They can destroy all of my work in a very short period of time. I’ve already removed several from the beds and from some of the plants. They come out in the late evening and early morning, and they camouflage perfectly in the soil. And don’t be fooled by size, even the teeniest of slugs can do serious damage! Hopefully, I can get the plants all settled and growing before the slugs do major damage.

I’m joining Garden Ruminations for the Six on Saturday meme (because it is fun to do so!).

Enjoy the tour of my garden!

In Peace,
Dana

1, 2 & 3 – Pumpkins, Sunflowers & Sweet pea. I’ve placed eggshells around the plants to deter the slugs. Honestly, I don’t think it works, but I feel better having at least tried it. One side of the arch will be covered in sweet pea, while the other side will have pumpkins growing on it. That’s the plan, anyway!

4 – Slug. Yup, I took a picture of a slug. This guy was quite long and easy to spot. I also tend to look harder around the leaves that have damage done to them. I’ve found that ‘hunting’ them down, both morning and night, is the best way to deal with them – and always with gloves.

5 – View of the raised beds from both sides (after planting). In the bottom picture you can also see the raspberry plants. The border includes lavender on one side, Rosemary on another, little lime hydrangea on the far size, and beech hedging with containers of hosta on the last. Seeing blue skies is such a treat!

6 – Cherry tree at sunset. I couldn’t resist taking this picture. I was working on the other side of the garden and the lighting was just so perfect here that I was enticed to come over. I’d like many more days like these, please!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Do you have any (organic) means to get your slugs? 🙂