Do RAINWORMS eat letuce roots and how&where to cut what are bolting flowers or not?

HELLO Help.Please.This is my 1st veggie garden and I rally feel like a debutante.
I just planted with great care 3 green houses with salads and spinach.
All looked well last night. I took great care to improve the earth with mushroom manure and black wead free purchased soil. I removed all pebbles big and small and passed the earth through a mesh to remove all roots from other previous lawn etc).
Then wen planting each green salad pIand I added a finger pinch of the bone meal UNDER the 1/4 hand full mushroom manure that I polstered under each plant before closing around it.I have started putting crush eggs shells.
I have not SEEN slugs around or under the leaves.
Now suddently ONE salad over died 100% overnight.
I pulled it out and it was litterally separated from its roots and a huge rainworm
stuck across like it has separated it from the roots by eating it. Do rainworms eat lettuce
We have so many rainworms here in this area where ever I dig in the grounds EVERYWHERE are rainworms. I am from Europe. Is that what they call SLUGS here.
My rainworms are like mini snakes NOT head no horns NOT like a snail without house.

BOLTING: I am also worried about the bolting! Do I have to cut all flower of all salad or spinach they make or are in the making.
By doing so, do I kill off the future growing by cutting the small flowers nestled between some top leaves ?
When I was small I gave my granny all the Strawberry flowers for motherday and then regretted it when she told what will be the results:-).
Than space run out so I also planted pumpkin and zuchini etc on the other side of the house. Can their growing direction be DIRECTED along a path? I don't wnat them to grown into the lawn an have reserved a long narrow bed along the house facing south-east.
How much rain is good or not. When to close the green house or not ? I was told letuce and spinach do not like heat so I left all open all the time with all the rain lately
I am worried.
Thank you .
Thank's for any advise.

 

Re: Do RAINWORMS eat letuce roots and how&where to cut what are bolting flowers or no

Pretty impressive! Good utility of space. Well done. The plants should thrive barring insects,and too much water. In comparison I waste space, simply for convenience. I don't have slugs so can offer no advice from experience.

I grow lettuce and spinach and utilize the whole lettuce plant when pulling. The plant supplies more product this way when it is mature. But for a continuous supply one must plant at intervals of a week or so.

With spinach I take the large leaves and have a few feeds, but prefer Swiss Chard for its size and the taste is similar, and one only needs a few leaves of Swiss Chard, due to its size. As a Chinese friend told me they are all just greens.

Bolting too soon, I tend to contribute to cold weather for a long period, and the plant goes into seed mode, since they probably think it is the end of the season. Bolting I don't encounter too often. Time interval planting is a method to overcome the effects of bolting to some degree, since some plants will produce.

 

Re: Do RAINWORMS eat letuce roots and how&where to cut what are bolting flowers or no

First of all, I LOVE the term Rainworm! Could you snap a photo of one of your larger ones and post it here in the thread? But yes, they are likely slugs.

Slugs are a real pain, especially if they can hide out in a nice moist and dark spot during the day and then crawl out to feast at night. They reproduce freely, too, more's the pity. Their eggs are small, rigid, murky yellowish translucent beads about 1/8"-1/4" in diameter.

Since your garden patch is small, you can easily defend it from slugs by laying strips of copper ribbon or a thick band of copper wire all around the perimeter. They will not cross it. I have also been told coffee grounds are a deterrent as well...try topdressing the bed with your used grounds. Good for the soil too!

That said, it seems the edges of your veggie patch are concrete blocks with holes in them...perfect slug and snail habitat...so perhaps fill the holes with soil and plant herbs in each, the more aromatic the better. The lovely single marigolds with the fine, lacy foliage are reputed to repel slugs and snails as well.

Let us know how all that works!!

Regards,
Janet
ps. love your salad bed, and yes, pinch off those flowering stalks to delay bolting.

 

Re: Do RAINWORMS eat letuce roots and how&where to cut what are bolting flowers or no

Thank you. Sorry yes I have SWISS CHARD also and I have one that is RED center CHARD I lost the TAG with exact name .. and some spinach its mixed by blocks. It looks weaker that the chard. Thank's so much for your advice ( I guess the weekly planting is somehow a bit late to implement. )

 

Re: Do RAINWORMS eat letuce roots and how&where to cut what are bolting flowers or no

 

Re: Do RAINWORMS eat letuce roots and how&where to cut what are bolting flowers or no

Hello These are some Macro of ONE critter I found today after turning up TODAY to search for them . Somehow by miracle there were nearly none to be found. Maybe because I turned all upside down yesterday and weeded that new bed?
I found one old copper pipe in my garage I laid it to rest along the bed.
I hope to grow the pumpkins down from the slope in the back maybe you can see them
2 different type a red and orange one . So are these SLUGS or Rainworms ? haha?
My salads are falling like soldiers :-( sniff many are going simple yellow and tip over ..
Can I use some spray or something to treat them maybe some lemon juice and water
or cayenne pepper in water .. I am so concerned ...as like this soon I see my self filling "saveONfood" pocket instead of eating my home grown lettuce etc.. the spinach seem to do better. What are things to cut or not on the salads? Thank you in advance for any reply and advice.

 

Re: Do RAINWORMS eat letuce roots and how&where to cut what are bolting flowers or no

Sie sind Garden Würmer [earth worm]. Gut für die Erde. Sie werden nicht essen Ihrer Pflanzen. Ich denke, daß die Schnecke / Schnecken sind vermutlich verantwortlich für Ihre Pflanze gegessen. Es heißt, Sie haben gute gesunden Boden.


They are earth worms. Good for the soil. They will not eat your plants. I think the snail/slugs are probably responsible for your eaten plant. It means you have good healthy soil. Here is a snail discussion on UBC for you to look at.

http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?p=147020#post147020

Liz

 

Re: Do RAINWORMS eat letuce roots and how&where to cut what are bolting flowers or no

Dear Liz ...Aha your German is very good. Herzlichen Dank. I am from Tirol left age.13.
So I read all the Snail thread and wrote:

After reading "all" these postings I really wonder what's more cruel? NOT getting my lettuce or using salt? I will try the grapefruit and orange thing. Amazingly I never SEE one slug or snail no where. On my whole 500m2 garden I have seen max 5 old small yellow/geeenish striped empty snail houses. My 3 patches have all three clear plastic green houses all around with bottom perimeter raised with earth so as to close them and there are no trail marks of them coming in and out. Where do they sleep normally ? Lifting the greenhouses is a pain as it has to be reset each time. But my lettuces still die like soldiers.
Liz told me they are good but I swear the first dead salad I pulled out out had an "EARTH WORM" stuck accross the plant where it was cut from its roots. I wish I had taken a macro then before the worm fell down to the floor.
end copy paste
Haha I suppose Liz you know what your talking about and I need night vision googles maybe. Do Snails only come at night ? In day its as empty as a shopping mall on a very bad day. I wish I could have my mandarin ducks that I had in South Africa. When I read about the seaweed I thought youpee but when I see the pic of the slug eating it in a ring of seeweed like a buffet my high hopes dropped. Thank you Danke for your time.

 

Re: Do RAINWORMS eat letuce roots and how&where to cut what are bolting flowers or no

I thought I replied this morning...alas it has vanished!

I think your lettuces may be suffering from the effects of the dreaded cutworm, the larvae of the cranefly. These are dirty grey, fat grubs about 3/4" long that live in the soil and I believe feed at night, usually chomping through the stalk of tender plants. I throw the grubs out onto the driveway when I find them and the crows are grateful for the tasty snack! One crow is so addicted to them that whenever I go out to the garden and dig, he appears, waiting for his treat. Cutworms are numerous under newly turned sod. I guess they typically feed on the grass roots.

I also wonder if the greenhouse covers, which are not required or even optimal for your salad crops, are causing overheating and wilt? The extra daytime heat may also be accelerating your bolting.

The earthworms you found and photographed are not destructive, they are your best friends!

Below is a photo of slugs. They are NOT your best friends! And yes, they and snails are nocturnal, when they can move around with less fear of dessication.

 

Re: Do RAINWORMS eat letuce roots and how&where to cut what are bolting flowers or no