Slug Pellet Ban-Male Courgette Flowers-Springtails.

 Tiny springtails under the microscope

The days of using general slug pellets are nearly over. An announcement from DEFRA has banned metaldehyde slug pellets from Spring 2020.  They say "metaldehyde poses an unacceptable risk to birds and mammals."  The pellets being taken off the shelves contain metaldehyde or methiocarb. Don’t worry though, you won’t be needing to get the flashlight out to go into the garden at midnight on a slug hunt. There will be alternatives that claim to be less toxic to the environment. Some shops are stocking the new products now.

The new pellets are ferric phosphate based and are classified as suitable for use by the organic grower. They contain ferric phosphate or iron III phosphate, which affects the calcium metabolism in the gut system of snails and slugs causing them to stop feeding and die within three to six days.

Although the ferric phosphate is less toxic than metaldehyde, there remains the problem of the other ingredients in the tablets - known as chelators. These chemicals help bond the iron molecules and make them more toxic to the molluscs. Unfortunately they also affect earthworms, and, if consumed in large quantities, can poison pets.

There are other products coming to market such as the wool pellets but I have yet to see or hear anything positive about them. The compressed wool deters the slugs only until it gets wet, then the slugs crawl all over them so they are probably more effective in drier climates. They do work better than eggshells or coffee grounds though but at the moment are very expensive. Back to pellets then.

Courgettes

Our corgettes are finally doing something. For weeks now they have just sat there looking sorry for themselves but now have sprung into life with wild, reckless abandon. I think they have been using all of their energy to form roots ready for the growth spurt.  We did have a couple of male flowers initially which don’t produce the courgette and these probably come about to help pollinate the female flowers and entice insects such as bees who will return to the plants once the female flowers are produced.

You can make use of some of these male flowers by deep-frying them, though make sure you leave enough on the plant to ensure successful pollination. You'll know when your plants have started to produce female flowers, because female flowers have an immature courgette fruit behind them, while the male flowers are produced on long, thin stalks with no such swelling.

Courgette Tip

The trick to avoiding a glut of courgettes is to pick them while they are still small - anything up to about 20cm (8in) - and to pick them regularly. Picking and eating some of the male flowers will also help to slow production.

Springtails

The damp conditions have been a perfect breeding ground for springtails. You might have never seen one of these six legged creatures because they are only a couple of millimetres in size.

Springtails (Collembola) can be prolific with 100,000 reputed to live in each cubic metre of top soil. Most have a tail-like appendage folded up under their abdomen called a furcula which is held under tension. If they feel threatened it can be released to catapult them into the air to escape. They don’t seem to care where they spring to when disturbed and can spring anywhere.

They live in soil and in leaf litter where they eat mainly decaying plant material, fungi and bacteria. Some species are believed to feed on algae, pollen and insect faeces.

I have found the small creatures (that are not classified as insects but ‘Entognatha’) mainly in small plug cells where moisture and algae can sit making them perfect environments for them. When I repot or pack plant plugs I give them a few sharp taps on a hard surface and the springtails fall out and scuttle away.

When numbers reach outbreak levels springtails may be found indoors on floors and around windows. Ponds are occasionally covered with a fine scum made up of millions of tiny springtails floating on the water surface.

Control

Springtails aren’t usually an issue but they can take over your houseplant soil if it is wet and they do make you feel like scratching when you see them. They usually die off quickly when the soil dries out without the need for any chemicals.