Either that or we have a phantom seed thief. I planted Hallahup beetroot seeds in the raised vegetable plot on the 22nd February and Lisbon spring onion seeds on 1st March. So far only three tiny beetroot leaves have germinated and no spring onions. I am suspicious because the spring onion seeds I planted on the 18th of March are already about 1cm tall. I know the seeds are missing because not only did I plant them in milatary formation I placed markers at the end of each row.
I can’t blame Mr Blackbird or cats on this occasion as the area is covered with open crates, sticks, or plastic trays. And as I check their progress every few hours it can’t be slugs – no slime trails. Haha… when you are in COVID lockdown you have plenty of time to watch things grow.
I know ants steal the slug pellets as I’ve seen them carrying them away, so why not seeds? I also have several pots of seeds in the cold frames that have not germinated either. Ponderous.
And to add insult to injury while I was inspecting the bare earth I felt something nip my toe. I looked down and it was a flipping ant!
Has anyone else experienced this problem? If so what did you do to rectify the situation?
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Piglet in Portugal 
What the heck?! I know that some species rely on ants for dispersing their seeds, and that ants ‘can’ take other seeds too, but this is weird. There is so much else out there for them to be interested in.
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They also steal the tiny blue slug pellets and fertilizer.
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Dang! What are they up to?
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I’ve not encountered ant thieves with my seeds, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t steal them.
If I had an ant problem, I would sprinkle black pepper or red pepper flakes around the area I want to keep them out of. And hopefully no children or pets would come in contact with the pepper.
However, if it’s an invasion of ants, I would use ant an control feeder thing. The feeder thing has something in it that the ants carry back to their nest.
I wish you luck in resolving your missing seeds.
Have a good weekend!
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I like the idea of the chilli flakes. I have plenty of the Piri Piri flakes. I have tried the ant feeders in the past and our ants walked straight over the top. We did have a product called Nipon, but I can’t seem to buy it here. That was like a gel which the ants took back to their nest.
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And the ants go marching one by one…Too bad they wouldn’t march somewhere else.
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Exactly. I need to make some Exit signs
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