More slugs
2 May 2022 04:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI decided to empty out the seed compartments of red and pink poppies, simply uprooting and destroying all the latter (leaving only the rogue coriander seedling that managed to germinate from the compost!) and potting up three or four of the small field poppy seedlings. I also potted up the biggest of the Swan River daisies.
I then combined the remaining compost from the two empty seed compartments and put it back into one of them in order to plant some more calendula seed, in the hopes of providing some kind of succession to the two plants from last year that are in full flower now. And about five minutes after I'd put the compost in (by hand) and firmed it down and planted seed in it, first one and then *two* sizeable one-and-a-half-inch slugs emerged from the newly-planted soil at a rate of knots, clearly seeking to escape their new accommodation! How could they possibly have been in the compost that I had just been emptying out, teasing apart and separating seedlings out of? And how could I possibly have put them back in to a small pot with my bare fingers without noticing their presence...?
I have also repotted my 'wildflower' seedlings, which was a pot sown with random seed that I had harvested in an old handkerchief; two different varieties went in there, and I think I saw two different types of seedlings coming up, but I also put in some cornflower seed on the surface and saw it putting out roots (though I'm not sure if it survived beyond that stage), and of course I presumably got the usual selection of self-sown poppies, corn-chamomile and corn-marigolds, so I genuinely don't know which plants are which. I daren't weed anything out until I'm quite sure of its identity, which so far means just the oriental poppies and corn-marigolds.
I can't see anything that looks much like cornflowers, but there are definitely some seedlings that are much larger than the rest and are presumably a specific species that I haven't seen before. Ironically those are the ones which are putting out long thin leaves that look the most like cornflowers, but I don't think they *can* be, since I'm pretty sure those had already germinated as large seedlings before I ever added the cornflower seed...
I also potted up half the basil from the tray in the mini-greenhouse, so that I could stand the chilli pot in that end of it -- the chilli seedlings are simply not developing at all (the seed-leaves still haven't opened), despite my struggles to find warm places for them both indoors and outdoors :-(
I then combined the remaining compost from the two empty seed compartments and put it back into one of them in order to plant some more calendula seed, in the hopes of providing some kind of succession to the two plants from last year that are in full flower now. And about five minutes after I'd put the compost in (by hand) and firmed it down and planted seed in it, first one and then *two* sizeable one-and-a-half-inch slugs emerged from the newly-planted soil at a rate of knots, clearly seeking to escape their new accommodation! How could they possibly have been in the compost that I had just been emptying out, teasing apart and separating seedlings out of? And how could I possibly have put them back in to a small pot with my bare fingers without noticing their presence...?
I have also repotted my 'wildflower' seedlings, which was a pot sown with random seed that I had harvested in an old handkerchief; two different varieties went in there, and I think I saw two different types of seedlings coming up, but I also put in some cornflower seed on the surface and saw it putting out roots (though I'm not sure if it survived beyond that stage), and of course I presumably got the usual selection of self-sown poppies, corn-chamomile and corn-marigolds, so I genuinely don't know which plants are which. I daren't weed anything out until I'm quite sure of its identity, which so far means just the oriental poppies and corn-marigolds.
I can't see anything that looks much like cornflowers, but there are definitely some seedlings that are much larger than the rest and are presumably a specific species that I haven't seen before. Ironically those are the ones which are putting out long thin leaves that look the most like cornflowers, but I don't think they *can* be, since I'm pretty sure those had already germinated as large seedlings before I ever added the cornflower seed...
I also potted up half the basil from the tray in the mini-greenhouse, so that I could stand the chilli pot in that end of it -- the chilli seedlings are simply not developing at all (the seed-leaves still haven't opened), despite my struggles to find warm places for them both indoors and outdoors :-(