Down to earth: Dr Satish narula

During rains you see many new ‘guests’ to your garden,the snails being one of them. They carry their slimy body,crawling on the ground during the late evening hours. One can make out their presence in the morning by the silver trail that they leave behind. They feed mostly on the succulent plants with soft leaves. If you have a small water body in your garden,you will find them sticking to the side walls. As they are very sluggish in their movement,you can physically remove them from the beds and lawn. Leave some broken pot in a corner,inverted. You will find most of them congregating under it. Throw them out. There are chemicals too to kill them but I think you must try physical removal. Try another interesting way and give me the feed back. Place a few saucers filled with beer in the lawn or on the beds as snails seem to have an affinity for it and may gather near it. Let us see what happens.

I have two pots full with asparagus. I want to multiply it. How should I do it?
Namita,Chandigarh
You can invert the pot and give it a gentle tapping. The whole of the earth ball will come out. Throw it hard on the ground a few times. The excess soil will leave the strangled roots. Divide these roots and you will get independent plants.

I have some beetles with spots on their body. They are the size of a gram seed.
Others are about a centimetre long and have no spots on the body. Kindly identify these for me and also tell me what to do?
Jagmeet Singh,Panchkula
The ones with dots on the body and the size of a gram seed are the lady bird beetles and others are defoliating beetles. The former are friends and the latter are foes. See if the number of the bold beetles is not much then let them be there or else spray thiodan,dissolved at two millilitre to a litre of water.

Do I have to do something with grape vine at this stage? Also please tell about the necessary measures against diseases?
Manjot Singh,Mohali
Spray the grapevine with bavistin,dissolved at one gram to a litre of water. Also mix with it sevin at two gram to a litre of water. You have not specified any crop or disease. Do you mean a blanket spray? Then go in for bavistin spray as specified here.

When is the time to sow winter seasonal seeds and gladiolus bulbs?
Rukmani,Chandigarh
Wait till the middle of September for seasonals and October for bulbs

For gardening problems,ASK DR GREEN at satishnarula@pau.edu