Gardening: As your veggies start to grow, remember to give slugs their marching orders

Courgettes raised from seed are growing strongly now and they need lots of space around them in order to flourish. If you are just planting yours, then handle them carefully because the stems are very brittle and it doesn’t take much to snap them.

Each plant will need about one metre to itself, so if you don’t have enough space in the veg patch, try growing them instead in large buckets. These will need regular watering, however if you have a glut of fruits then stop watering for a short time and the plants will become semi-dormant until they are watered again.

Courgettes don’t take much weeding because their large leaves do an effective job of smothering anything that tries to emerge from the soil, but other crops will need regular attention and the best way to do this is by running a hoe through the soil in order to cut off annual weeds.

Pea shoots can be harvested now. Remove the top five centimetres of stem and then allow the peas to recover before you pick more. Meanwhile check the supports of peas growing for their pods, adding extra sticks for them to scramble over if they are beginning to sag.

It’s also time to plan ahead, sowing kale, purple sprouting broccoli, Savoy cabbage and turnip and you can also sow lettuce for late summer picking, but remain vigilant about slugs as these are very active, especially during spells of wet weather.

If you must use slug pellets, then make sure these don’t contain metaldehyde as this is poisonous to children and birds. A ban on pellets containing this was recently introduced then overturned, but it is expected that they will disappear from the shelves in the near future so try other methods of deterring slugs including barriers made from crushed eggshells, spiky prunings, copper tape, or grit. Beer traps are also effective and if you can encourage thrushes into the garden then these will eat slugs for you.

But slugs aren’t the only pests in town. Some dogs will eat Brussels sprouts and peas straight from the garden, wasps mob plum trees and children are drawn to fruit bushes like bees to honey and neither beer traps nor eggshells work on any of these.

Sometimes the only way to harvest crops before anything else gets to them is to be first out into the garden in the morning.