Bulb potting mix

[annew]

Guess what I found today? Yep - colchicums, solid and white and healthy with big holes containing a guilty-looking woodlouse. I gave it the benefit of the doubt.

[mark smyth]

I'll hijack my own thread and ask

What does everyone do with their spent compost? I already have two very large containers

[Lesley Cox]

Believe me, woodlice DO eat other than rotten stuff. I know because for three years I was losing every flower of Colchicum szovitsii as soon as the buds began to open. One night I was out slugging and there around each flower of the colchicum, were 6 or 8 woodlice (we call them slaters) each one chomping on the flowers. By morning there was no flower left. They were caught in the act. I have no nice feelings at all for woodlice and agree with Anne that bantams (we had a few hens for a while) are the best way to control them. Failing that, I now spray any plant trays, benches or anywhere I grow seeds, cuttings etc, with a product called Ripcord and it kills woodlice, spiders and various other creepies like the beetles of grass grub. It doesn't affect worms or, so far as I can see, centipedes. It's main use is for spraying houses to keep spiders off.

[Lesley Cox]

Mark, I recycle my spent potting mix into my (putative) vegetable garden.

[mark smyth]

Thanks Lesley! I knew they were feasting on my Tulips and Colchicums.

We call them Slaters too.

Way too many Garden spiders in my green house. I walk in every morning with my hand waving before me to pull down the cobwebs

[fermi de Sousa]

I have to agree with Mark!
Despite what "friends of the lice" may say, they will attack healthy material as I've found to my horror with some retic iris and with vegie seedlings. An initial injury may be caused by something else, such as a slug, but the woodlice will polish them off even if they're not "rotting"!
cheers
fermi

[David Nicholson]

I'll hijack my own thread and ask

What does everyone do with their spent compost? I already have two very large containers

I dig it in to improve soil in general beds or add it to the compost heap

[ashley]

In my experience at least some woodlice species go for undamaged plant tissues, particularly petals and soft foliage.  Violas are a favourite hereabouts.

[mark smyth]

I last potted bulbs on Sunday. Today the bone meal, I assume, has gone mouldy. Is this dangerous for the bulbs?

[mark smyth]

I'll tag this photo in here. There is just enough room for me to have a bulb frame behind the oil tank. Due to the lack of room I may at some stage get  raised bench put here

[David Nicholson]

I last potted bulbs on Sunday. Today the bone meal, I assume, has gone mouldy. Is this dangerous for the bulbs?

What were you storing it in (or did you mean it had gone mouldy in your pots??)

[mark smyth]

It's gone mouldy in the mix that is still in the wheel barrow so I assume it's now mouldy in the pots

[Ian Y]

Mark the mould should not be a problem I get it too. The soil fungi and bacteria -mould- are reqired to break down the bone meal to release the nitrogen and phospherous into a form that the plants can take up.
And yes I am impressed with your pictures of bulbs etc on another thread I am just too busy to reply just now.  ;)

[mark smyth]

Here's the mould. Careful excavation shows it's on the surface only - from what I can tell

[mark smyth]

I'll pop another question in here. Can I use this same basic mix for Trilliums and Peonies but with extra leaf mould