What's eating my lettuce?

[angiep429]

Hoping someone can help on this. We have planted assort veg in raised beds, pots, letttuce, carrots etc and around the bottom of the plum trees have planted more letttuce to make use of the space, the thing is, something is eating the lettuce under the plum trees. There are no gaps in the fencing, no gate from the front of the house anything can get thru and the lettuce in the raised beds are untouched, but the others are being munched to death. Any ideas?

[mollykins]

slugs and snails? or are the munch marks to big?

[boxtops]

Yes I'd agree with molly, a set of slugs or snails can demolish plants quite quickly. Invest in some slug pellets and see what happens. These pests hide away in the daytime so look round the tree roots or under local stones and see if they are hiding there - if so, dispose of!

[angiep429]

Hi mollykins, thought of snails but there are no slimy trails and it looks like it's something bigger. Bit of a garden puzzle this one, might have to get up early with my binoculars!

[treebear]

watch out for pigeons, pheasants they all love garden veg

[mollykins]

moles? do foxes eat vegetation?

[angiep429]

Hi boxtops, will try the slug pellets just in case you and mollykins are right, will post again if I find dead snails x

[boxtops]

Good luck, they are the bane of my gardening life!

[angiep429]

treebear that's very interesting, we are plagued by pigeons but I didn't know they ate greenstuff can't be moles as area is paved, if it is the pigeons, a bit of flapping stuff should keep them away, thanks all. x

[mollykins]

foxes perhaps then? they scavenge anything don't they?

[angiep429]

don't think it could be foxes there isn't anywhere they could get in.

[mollykins]

hhmmm probably birds then.

[boxtops]

Foxes don't eat vegetables, surely?

[mollykins]

They're scavengers and will eat virtually anything . . . .

[treebear]

they might do if they were dipped in goose fat

[angiep429]

I didn't think they did, and I'll just ignore the post above you, seen them on chatterbank.

[brenda]

Rabbits-- baby ones are not very big.?

[carmalee]

any lettuce type plant is vunerable to slugs,snails, birds - put netting and beer traps around - if you haven't protected your veggies from rabbit etc do so now making sure you dig the fencing in well. Where are you - what country and are you in and are you a townie or a countryike?

[society]

Rabbits