Help with missing carrot seedlings

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minikem

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Help with missing carrot seedlings
« on: April 16, 2009, 09:58 »
Please help as this is my first year of veg growing:

I sowed a couple of varieties of carrots outside in my small plot about 5 weeks ago. All was looking good with lots of healthy looking seedlings.

At the weekend I thinned them out as lots of them were growing too close together and then covered them with fleece straight away to deter carrot fly.

I went to check on my carrot seedlings yesterday evening and they were all gone. Every single one.  None of the other seedlings in the garden are gone (spinach, rocket, beetroot, radish, broad beans) so I can't understand what has happened to these.  Surely if it was the dreaded slugs (which are slowly munching their way through my winter gem lettuce) they would have taken the other seedlings?

Did carrot fly get them - do they eat the seedlings?!

Looking for some advice as I want to sow another batch but don't want the same thing happening so thanks in advance for any help.

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Jay Dubya

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Re: Help with missing carrot seedlings
« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2009, 10:02 »
Hi, almost certainly slugs they can go down a row of young carrots in no time, and it's moist under the fleece. A few pellets between the rows will stop it.

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minikem

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Re: Help with missing carrot seedlings
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2009, 10:09 »
Thanks - I guess I'm relieved it isn't something else I've done wrong.
Looking forward to my nematodes arriving but I'll try a few pellets in the meantime and might go out on slug patrol.
I hate slugs.

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Jay Dubya

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Re: Help with missing carrot seedlings
« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2009, 10:37 »
Hi, as i've said before slug pellets are the only thing that keep me from being organic, but i just can't find anything to match them.

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minikem

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Re: Help with missing carrot seedlings
« Reply #4 on: April 16, 2009, 10:44 »
As a very happy coincidence the postman has just delivered my nematodes so I'll be applying those after work tonight.  Fingers crossed as I seem to have an unbelievably huge slug population in my garden. My Mum lives down the road and has none at all. So unfair.

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zazen999

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Re: Help with missing carrot seedlings
« Reply #5 on: April 16, 2009, 10:50 »
I use the organic slug pellets....they really do work.



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upert

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Re: Help with missing carrot seedlings
« Reply #6 on: April 16, 2009, 10:56 »
have you looked in the bureau?

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minikem

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Re: Help with missing carrot seedlings
« Reply #7 on: April 16, 2009, 11:00 »
No -  I interrogated the labrador but he swore it wasn't him. Will try the bureau next.

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Salmo

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Re: Help with missing carrot seedlings
« Reply #8 on: April 16, 2009, 15:18 »
Do not jump to the conclusion of slugs too quickly. Could just as easily be wireworms, leatherjackets, cutworms, millepedes, symphalids, springtails, chafers to name but a few.

Time to do some detective work. Can you find any remains of plants? Have just the leaves been eaten? Have the stems been bitten or have bitemarks? Have the roots been eaten?

Have a careful dig around and see if you can find any bugs in the soil. Take a trowell full of soil and spread it out on a sheet of paper. See if anything starts moving.

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minikem

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Re: Help with missing carrot seedlings
« Reply #9 on: April 16, 2009, 20:02 »
Had a good root around in the soil. Everything above ground is completely gone but there do seem to be some thin roots left in (although not that many as I had thinned the seedlings at the weekend).

Put a couple of trowels of soil on some paper and nothing is moving at all apart from a large worm.

Does that mean slugs or something else?


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Salmo

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Re: Help with missing carrot seedlings
« Reply #10 on: April 16, 2009, 21:30 »
Probably slugs. Put a few slug pellets under a plastic bag and anchor it down with stones/earth. If there are slime trails and dead slugs it is them.


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