Kitchen Garden Forum

I've just been emptying some tubs of pansies and in one tub found some very small yellow ball shaped objects. They're about the size of snail eggs maybe a tiny bit smaller and egg yolk yellow. They may not be eggs could be some sort of nodule from the plants I suppose. The only other things planted in the tubs were crocus and they aren't crocus offshoots.

I did notice some small centipedes in the tub - anyone know what their eggs look like?

They might be the remains of those slow release fertiliser pellets which are sometimes found in bought-in plants in the growing medium.Assuming,of course, that the Pansies were bought in.

glallotments wrote:
I did notice some small centipedes in the tub - anyone know what their eggs look like?

No - but this is Osmocote fertilizer which is widely used in plants bought from nurseries. Were the "eggs" soft or hard?

I didn't squish them to find out. They were that shade of yellow but there were only about three of them.

The compost used was the same as in the other tubds and had the same plants growing in them. Pansies were bought as small plants but all from the same place. I didn't notice anything when I was planting up the pansies.

I suppose they could have been started off in some compost with the fertilizer and then moved on so only some little balls survived

Almost certainly these are slow release fertiliser granules - your description fits them precisely and they are routinely used in the production of bedding plants, amongst others. It's one of the most common queries that people have with potted plants, most assume they are some kind of snail egg since they are exactly the same size and shape.