Grow Your Own Magazine

Can anyone help pls? I dug over a square plot of my allotment over the weekend, and found several gruesome looking things, that, according to a book I read later, said they were chafer grubs(?)

How do you get rid of the little b*****s, as cleanly as possible, coz I don't really like chucking chemicals about?

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Zebedee
"Raised to a state of heavenly lunacy where I just can't be touched!"

My plots are plagued with them also.

I just chuck them out onto the garden and the birds sort them out for me - natural remedy.

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TonyF, Dordogne 24220

Our tame female blackbird follows me and my neighbour when we're digging and will trample on your boot to get at things like this. I actually saw her eat a huge slug last year. Yuk!

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 17th - The Big Dig

A couple of football pitches over here were so bad last year that they just had to plough the pitch, let the birds do their stuff eating the bugs, and then re-seed the pitches (pitch out of action for some time). Provado will work, but if you don't want to use chemicals then digging them up is the best.

you could lay some black plastic sheet on the ground...when you lift it off again the grubs will be near the surface. Saves a bit of digging.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Trout love em!!!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Probably Expensive but this will do it

http://www.nemasysinfo.com/html/chaf...ller_main.html

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ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

They are May Bugs...and if they is only one thing that gives me the screaming abdabs its them. So bad I couldn't go out in garden the other night... like some war movie I could almost hear the dambusters theme. They seem to be coming up in one of my greenhouses. I've killed about fifty of them now The best schoolboy bit is watching how quick the ants clean them up.

Two sheds has a good method there for the chaffers (works for leatherjackets too) also upturned turfs work the same. Birds do love them. As nick points out the nematodes are pricey option. Don't get the black juice on you smells like concentrated sewage....They certainly hit all the branches falling out the ugly tree!

and did i say eeeeeyyyyyyyyuuurrrrkkkk!!!!!! don't want to come back as a blackbird or trout if i have to eat those whitchety grubs.

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Advertising is the rattling of a stick in a swill bucket. George Orwell
Paul

Your plot must be REALLY damp Snadger!

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 17th - The Big Dig

Well at least Snadger won't have to worry about a hose pipe ban then?

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I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields

Thats what they remind me of!!! Those things that Ray Mears or Bushtucka Man is always chomping on and going ooh...ahhh.... yum!!!

Wonder what they taste like???

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

We used to call them 'Docken grubs' when we were kids. If we were going fishing we used to dig up docks and usually find some around there roots. When put on a hook they wriggle like blazes (as you would!) and thats what used to attract the fish!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Wish my little pond at the lottie could hold a few trout!

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Advertising is the rattling of a stick in a swill bucket. George Orwell
Paul

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"A good gardener always plants 3 seeds - one for the bugs, one for the weather and one for himself.” - Leo Aikman
Lauren

Crocodile Dundee had the best approach - "they taste like sh*t, I'm having tinned peaches!"

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TonyF, Dordogne 24220

My brother in law had a Mayfly land on his thingy when he went to close the window at bedtime
As it looked like it had a good grip, he wasn't going to try and flick it off.
Goodness knows what he did do but I think that was his moment from hell!!!
Bet there was a bit of running round- or stunned silence????
(He'll kill me if he reads this!!!)

Nick - the chafer grub nematode killer WILL work, but not at this time of year. It has to be used from late summer to autumn to get the best effect.

Laurengrows - they sound like moth pupae, i've found lots of them this spring too. Its impossible to know what kind of moth from looking at it, so i tend to leave them on the surface of the soil for the birds.

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There's vegetable growing in the family, but I must be adopted
Happy Gardening!

they sound like moth pupae, i've found lots of them this spring too. Its impossible to know what kind of moth from looking at it, so i tend to leave them on the surface of the soil for the birds.
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Thanks for that tip, I get tons of bird visitors as I am the only one around here who has a lawn

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"A good gardener always plants 3 seeds - one for the bugs, one for the weather and one for himself.” - Leo Aikman
Lauren

I bury them again! I like moths too!

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 17th - The Big Dig

but a lot of the moths that pupate in the soil produce soil dwelling larvae that EAT your crops - roots, tubers etc! plus the catterpillars of silver Y moths are devils for eating your lettuce, spinach and other crops - not to mention the diamond back moth - HUGE catterpillars!

Not all moths are good!

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There's vegetable growing in the family, but I must be adopted
Happy Gardening!

Didn't say they were good. I just said I like them!

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 17th - The Big Dig

I throw them onto next doors plot He did pinch 3ft wide 45mtr long of my plot

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Belgrave-allotments.co.uk

RU sure these 'moth pupae' are not cut worms or leatherjackets?

PottyP he maybe chucking them back There sounds like there's an issue here