Wednesday 25 April 2007

The battle begins...

War is upon us! On the way out to get some compost from the shed I found 6 or 7 juicy plump slugs chowing doen on my radishes. No wonder they're full of holes and growing so slowly. Little bastads. I picked them off and lobbed them as far as I could over the fence, but when I came back there were another 3 or 4 there.

After ejecting them this time I put some chilli pepper, which apparently they don't like, down around the plants. Should do the trick until it rains - which seems pretty unlikey right now. I am being councilled, however, that a more hardline strategy involving salt and pellets is required if I wish to save my lettuces. I want to avoid pellets though (for the birdies) so instead I'm going to try and build some beer traps, employ holly leaves, and design some sort of water feature to attract toads (as if the offer of a slug supper washed down with free beer and salad wasn't enough for them!)

In other news, I bumped into Henry getting off the train this evening, so went round to see how he was getting on. His lettuce is much bigger, the onions he grew from sets are slightly bigger than my garlic and he's already got his courgettes on the go. Planting early seems to be paying off for him, particularily with all the global warming (I'm reading James Lovelock's Revenge of Gaia at the moment. It really is scary stuff that we need to face up to) I also found this little mushroom growing by my carrots while I was slug slinging. \/

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