It’s ask the internet time: what are these little yellow flowers?
I ask because they crop up in my veg plot here and there and I quite like them so I’ve been moving any I find to the flower bed under the climbing roses rather than just chucking them in the compost. But I noticed the other day when I was moving a little clump that they had thick white roots which is usually the sign of an invasive weed. I don’t want to turn out to be the idiot gardener who encouraged something like bindweed into the plot – but if they’re not likely to cause too much trouble (and if I’m honest, where I’m moving them to the alternative is bindweed or at best buttercups so they can’t be much worse).
And while I’ve got your attention: what could have done this to my leeks?
I’m so annoyed – last year my leeks did rather well so this year I wasn’t too worried about them once I’d got them planted out into their seed bed. But I went to weed them this afternoon and discovered something’s been neatly decapitating them. I don’t think it’s slugs, for once, because it doesn’t look like slug damage. But if it’s not slugs, then what? And how am I supposed to combat this new enemy?
I was going to ask you a third question: where my fork was. But after about half an hour’s searching it turned up in the compost heap where it had ended up because I’d seen it lying on the path and thought ‘I mustn’t leave that there because I’ll lose it’ and put it in the basket of weeds I was taking up to get rid of. Sigh. I think I may have to invest in a metal detector, or else a really long piece of string…
Why not slugs? Exactly the same thing has happened to my spring onions and I’m blaming the slugs, but then, I blame the slugs for everything. It’s usually a safe bet.
The Yellow Flowers belong to Pauper Iocum, commonly known as the Decapitating Buttercup. If I can turn your attention to your leeks I think you’ll understand why
You know, someone could make a fortune by inventing a cheap item locating system — a set of numbered, adhesive backed plastic tags with tiny embedded chips that could be stuck on various items, and a simple “remote” — They would have a handy website where you would open your free account for assigning each of the numbered tags to an item, and then download the info to your locater remote via a USB cable. The remote would have a small LED screen, and would have a rechargeable battery like a cellphone. Then when you were missing something, you would use your remote, scroll down to that item on your list and punch the “Locate” button. The remote would beep slowly and show directional arrows to indicate which direction to go to find the lost item, and beep rapidly when you were within a foot or two of it. You could tag things like garden tools, phones, keys, glasses, etc. Once you had everything set up, you would then lose the locater remote.
I think it’s snails that do that to leeks – apparently they have have stronger jaws
I didn’t think it was slugs or snails because there was no slime trail and the decapitated bit had gone. But it could be…
WOL – heh. Exactly
Is there any chance it was a deer. There is a foolproof way of being able to find any lost item. First have a quick look around, then go and buy a new item and when you get back home you will find the lost item.
John
Rabbits, no question!
They are probably hiding your garden tools, too. They do that here.
Oh yes, my hand fork end up in the compost a lot too. Either there or the fridge.
You used to be able to get those keychains that beeped when you whistled. You could attach one of these to each of your garden tools!
(And then the neighbours can laugh when you go around your garden dementedly whistling at the ground)