RE: eelworm

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Greetings from the Algarve in southern Portugal.

Today, sunny and 21'C at 09.00.

I have just moved from the cool, wet and windy West of Ireland to this lovely Mediterranean climate. But now I have so much to relearn about gardening...I am sure that I shall need your advice and wisdom.

My first crisis is that I have discovered that I have a root knot eelworm in at least one area of our small suburban garden which I am using as a vegetable bed. I planted this in July with lettuce, salad onions, sweet peppers and tomatoes. Nothing thrived and both the lettuce and tomatoes just stopped growing. When I dug the plants up I discovered the eelworm galls. Depression has set in! Today I am going to sow some Tagetes over the bed in an attempt to control the eel worm and next year will try some resistant crops and varieties interplanted with Tagetes.

Another area of the garden which I have just weeded appears to be clear, but I am also worried that it may be in other areas where there are 20 year established bushes and trees (eg Citrus, Hibiscus and Oleander). Again I feel that none of these plants are really thriving - but I had put that down to lack of TLC over the years.

In most areas, the soil is a heavy clay (concrete when dry!), but there are some patches of sand. pH varies 7.1 - 7.7.

The big question - is there life after eelworm! I would love to hear of other peoples experiences.

A second question- I find from the web that there is one (and apparently only one) resistant strain of lettuce - an American heritage variety "Grand Rapids" - does anyone know where I can source this within the European Union... or do you know of other resistant varieties.

Any thoughts and encouragement welcome....

Yours looking into an abyss of pots and container gardening!

Brian