Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
About seven years ago, I turned the garden over to growing veg, building three raised beds.
It was exciting in the beginning and I grew a variety of veg but it became progressively harder - not least, because of the hard work and the cost.
The last straw was a crop of potatoes which were growing well one minute, and the next were decimated by blight. All that work gone overnight!.
It seemed that I was fighting a continuous battle against bugs and snails/slugs. Once again I have grown runners which have been badly affected by black fly again. Cabbages were grazing grounds for caterpillars.
I'm not sure I want to go thru all that again after replacing the veg patch with a great flower bed (if I say so meself)
My mrs is Buddhist, and really doesn't like using any chemicals in the garden or house, so we don't use any chemicals or means of dealing with the pests that involves killing them.
This basically means most nights spending 5-10 minutes gently removing any slugs and snails with a pair of tweezers and yeeting them over the fence (there's a empty patch of land over the fence, they aren't going in someone's garden.) It does eventually work though, there were loads of the buggers to begin with, now it's only 1 or 2 a night

Caterpillars are similarly dealt with, they are a real pain at the moment, so you have to use nets on any brassicas especially.