Too early in the year for drama!

[Kimby]

Well ladies and gents it's the start of the new season and I think we're all full of excitement for what lies ahead.

Or at least I was but I'm experiencing a couple of snags!

First off we have overwintering onions. They were doing amazingly well, all tall and green and had surprisingly survived the snow with no covering. Now tho some of the shoots are falling over and turning yellow on the tip. Not all are suffering from this problem but some are.

Secondly a population of wireworms which have appeared in all of my raised beds. Apparently this has been caused by the fact that most of my top soil has come from the old lawn where my raised beds are located. Little blighters are everywhere and it's my mission to kill them.

Thirdly, and lastly. I've had pepper seeds in a propagator which has been spending the daytime in the porch where it gets nice and light and warm. 8 of the plants got too big for the propagator so I potted them up but now some of the leaves have little cut marks in them (like someone's nicked them with scissors) and are going brown. I've made sure I'm watering them regularly, but not too much, didn't know if they were too small for the Tomorite or if I should just start feeding them and hope for the best?

[Nicola_D]

Hi kimby, i'm no expert either

could your onions just be ready to pull up? I've just planted some onion sets into my raised bed and the packets said that they are ready to harvest when the greenery starts to die down

What are wireworms? and why are they bad?

Your peppers sound good, I've had some chilli pepper seeds in the heated prop since mid Feb and they took about 2 weeks to germinate (which I think is about right for chillis) but have hardly grown, still just the first two leaves - not even true ones yet and that's it), as for the nicks - I guess you must have checked for any bugs. I thought you were only supposed to feed with tomato feed when the first fruits appear (or just before - i.e. when they start flowering) but I could be wrong.

[Nicola_D]

Oooh just googled wireworms! not good in a raised bed then seeing as they eat root vegetables. The thing I read said you could use traps but putting chunks of potatoes in the ground attached to skewers so you can pull them up easily and hopefully the worms will have burrowed into the potato and you can get rid of them - suppose you'd have to pull them up quite often.

[malcolmx]

plants are short of feed feed with a liquid fertiliser and couour should return
i think eelworms need a chemical drench to remove them i dont think that there is an organic remidy
may be smaal slugs on plants cutting out pieces or it may be a leaf cutter beetle

[Kimby]

Thanks Nicola - I also spotted that post about wireworms and have buried potatoes as advised. Hopefully the little blighters will wiggle their way over there!

Have already given the onions some liquid feed and will repeat as per the instructions on the feed.

Still no idea about what's happening with the peppers - they're kept in the house and there are no bugs in here! You're right tho, it is too early for the Tomorite so I'm gonna just have to keep an eye on them. There are some more that need to be potted up so thinking about putting the in the greenhouse and away from the porch. Worth a shot!

[GMB27]

Originally Posted by Nicola_D

Oooh just googled wireworms! not good in a raised bed then seeing as they eat root vegetables. The thing I read said you could use traps but putting chunks of potatoes in the ground attached to skewers so you can pull them up easily and hopefully the worms will have burrowed into the potato and you can get rid of them - suppose you'd have to pull them up quite often.

Wow thats interesting 'potato fishing'! Learning something new every day