Carrot Dilemma

Please can you help, my carrots get up to about an inch high and then disappear they are under a protective cloche and there is plenty of slug pellets around. What I find is that not only do the carrots disappear but so do the slug pellets what could be eating them under the cloche? The cloche is the type that are white cloth with tie down ends and the garden is protected from rabbits, I live in the country. I have saturated a line of carrots with pellets and within  two days all pellets are gone, when will I ever get a carrot again.

Best wishes

Richard Groom

Dear Richard

My sympathies for your difficulties with your carrots.  We’ve lost a few here at the kitchen garden to birds and mice, but it sounds like you have a big slug problem.  We were warned that this would be a bad year for slugs following last year’s very wet weather, and you would appear to be paying the price. 

I would recommend a dose of nemaslug on to your soil to kill off the population of slugs that is obviously living comfortably in your soil.  Following that I would grow your carrots within a barrier such as slug barrier to stop any further slugs moving in.  Another alternative would be to grow your carrots in a deep container instead of the ground where hopefully your slug pellets will cope better.

Good luck.  Here’s hoping for some carrot success!

Kindest Regards

Jo 

Jo Blackwell

Kitchen Gardener