Runner Bean Nightmare

28? That's small fry! I have been down my garden in the evening and collected 5lbs! of the blighters! No idea how many are in 5lbs but it was a lot! Half a carrier bag full. And lacking the hard-heartedness to kill them, I walked for about 20 minuted across the neighbouring heathland and emptied them all out in a shrub!

They do say, though, that a snail's homing instincts are more finely tuned than a homing pigeon and will eventually return to their origins! I believe someone even went to the trouble of painting numbers on the shells of snails he gathered up and sent miles away! It took a while but they did return.

 

back to the runner beans????

 

I think, faced with a slug-pub, my snails would do what any self respecting Medway resident would do - ie, drink the pub dry, destroy everything in sight and then slope away into the bushes to sleep it off.

 

The beans are starting to look better, now the beans that got eaten are starting to form new shoots, so hopefully these will grow into new climbing shoots.

The only thing is they get a lot of morning sun, and when this happens they appear to be wilting, each time I have given them some water and they spring back into life a few hours later.

They have a lot of slug pellets on them, and that combined with being on a balcony has thwarted the slugs and snails for now!