Slugs
Every day learning something new, or having something old thrown in my face because I didn’t absorb the lesson the first time. A while back I was watching a Happen Film here about Helen Dew, who’s 85. She went out with a head torch and picked the slugs off her veggies.
Yes, I thought, that’s the reason my seedlings are awful, must go out and do that. Yeah right. Middle of winter, wind, cold, dark, drizzle. I’ll just stay here inside with pumpkin soup and a cup of tea ta very much.
Fast forward three or so weeks, and I remembered to take the large hint. Slugs akimbo. Big ones, small ones, pin head sized ones. Wow. The rats have got nothing on these little critters.
The first mission two nights ago was after a dry day and you could see the silvery trails and locate the suckers quite easily. Tonight, after a drizzly day, everything is glistening wet so there are lots of false alarms, but there are also way more slugs, and three snails.
I concur with what I’ve read about the possibility of plants sacrificing a leaf or two so that the slugs decimate that whilst the rest grows happily. However when you’ve got five tiny slugs on every leaf and the odd big one, the plant is in slimed into submission and looks terrible.
Generally I try to take the rough with the smooth and hope predators even out who’s eating what, but, especially in the wicking beds, slugs become unwieldy. There are loads of dark damp nooks and crannies in the cage construction of the wicking beds and the weather this time of year means lizards are thin on the ground and not eating them as much.
Years ago I did get in the habit of slug hunting for a couple of weeks and it makes the world of difference to the veggie patch. Not the most glamorous of jobs, but hopefully a habit I can get into every winter eventually.
And what do I do with the lovelies once I have them in a bucket? Half fill it with water and chuck it into the street, they can take their chances out there rather than me stomp on them.
