garden

This morning I slept in. But once I woke up, I had to patrol for gastropods. It was chilly, dry, and overcast. By now, you know what that means: hardly any snails or slugs in evidence. While I was hunting for them, I did some weeding. (After all, the weeds give them shelter without actually being their preferred food source.) Thus, I'm counting the snailing time as productively spent. Since we need to hit the hardware store today for tomato cages, bamboo U-hoops, and pegboard, I'm adding unglazed tiles and bricks to the list so I can build the gastropod "shelters" Art describes. It…
This morning was relatively warm and fairly dry. If you've been following the details of my campaign to control the back yard gastropod population, you know what that means: Hardly any gastropods were out to be picked. On the plus side, this means I was able to get another day out of the SBMD I prepared three mornings ago. But it also means that the slimy hoards are hunkered down somewhere, out of my clutches, waiting until the conditions are right for them to slither out of hiding and munch on my plants. I'll grant, though, that the slithering will probably be relatively slow. Perhaps I'll…
Another cool, dewy morning today as I went out to pick gastropods. The wet grass brushing against my bare legs got at least some of that moisture from the slugs stretched along the blades. Tomorrow morning I'm going to remember to put on jeans before I go out snailing. There was still room in the Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance that I used yesterday and the day before. As a method of gastropod dispatch, the SBMD seems to be a lot less resource-intensive than the bucket o' salt, not to mention less slimy. Plus, since I'm pouring out the water and drowned gastropods onto the compost…
It didn't end up raining yesterday (so I didn't get a chance to test my dedication to snailing by snailing in the rain). Today dawned cold and dewy. Which meant I knew I was going to get some gastropod action. And indeed, I did. There were slugs aplenty on the moist leaves and blades of grass. Owing to the cold (which my fingers don't especially care for), I lost a few of them that leapt back to the earthy depths, but a good many found their way to the Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance (the same one I prepared yesterday, when the pickings were slim). Today, there were a bunch of mid-…
This morning was cool, overcast, and very dry. There was no discernible dew on the grass. In other words, not conditions in which the gastropods come out to play. Having some experience of this kind of weather earlier in the snail eradication campaign, I went right for the well-insulated hiding places: the bases of plants that provide a lot of shade, the sides of the raised beds, the sides of the compost bin. Nothing. Finally, I ended up scraping the bottom of the barrel (actually, the bottom of a watering can) and found a few wee slugs. I managed to find some more slugs and a couple of…
This was another cool, dewy morning following on the heels of a blazing hot day. In other words, good snailing weather. I got started a little earlier than usual, because I had to empty yesterday's Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance onto the compost pile and prepare a fresh Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance. I was a little disconcerted at the bodily integrity of the slugs in the bucket -- perhaps it's a side effect of watching too many horror movies, but I have this tiny irrational fear that, since they're not melted, they might come back. Reason enough to turn the compost pile and make…
Yesterday was a super-hot day, and this morning was cool and dewy. Later, though, we're expecting temperatures higher than yesterday's. So the gastropods were out enjoying the break in the heat while it lasted. On the plus side, many of them will not have to suffer through today's heat. I brought them to my Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance. (Thanks to Heddi for the tip!) The gastropods in evidence were skewed heavily toward slugs today. My shocking discovery was a climbing rose against the back fence whose blooms closest to the ground were festooned with slugs. At a certain point, I…
Dear Natural Selection, Can we have a chat about weeds? Don't get me wrong, I am duly impressed with the variety of plants that have evolved under your pressure. I'm all about the plants, and I try to be respectful of the growing conditions you impose in our zone. But would it kill you to make more of the plants that grow like gangbusters without us tasty? Why can't they all be like mint and lemon balm? Sure, yeah, if the weeds were tasty, it would be hard for them to defend themselves against being eaten. But I promise we're not drinking mojitos every night at Casa Free-Ride. And if the…
Well, I think it's safe to say that the slim pickings on days six and seven were related to the low level of dewiness. This morning: much dewier. The gastropod population in evidence in the back yard: back in the triple digits. Still, things seem not as infested as a week ago, when we launched the eradication effort. Most of the snails and slugs I found were a good distance from the vegetable garden, and the strawberries seem largely slug-free. However, I did have to pick a handful of snails out of the apple tree. Speaking of handfuls, my current record is 46 snails in one hand at a time.…
This morning I overslept, so I didn't get out into the yard until 6:15 AM to commence the gastropod picking. Either someone got to them before me, or there just aren't many left in the parts of the yard I am actively patrolling. Seriously, there weren't even any slugs on the side of the watering can (which is usually good for at least five slugs and snails on any given morning). By rummaging around at the bases of some of the bushier plants, I was able to scare up a few slugs -- fairly little ones, too, probably not mature enough to be reproducing. Like yesterday, this was not a very dewy…
This morning's garden foray was weird. Where were all the gastropods? In 30 minutes of serious hunting, in past hiding places and what looked like reasonable candidates as auxiliary hiding places, I mostly came up empty. Some possible explanations for this: I've put a serious dent in the snail and slug population, and they need to do some serious reproducing to replenish their ranks. (I doubt I'm this successful so early in the campaign.) The snails and slugs that remain are hiding in the far recesses of the yard (like way the heck under the wisteria in the corner). From there, they may…
Today, I may have picked slightly more slugs than snails. And, in the process of acquainting myself with the ways of the slug, I discovered a very good reason to perform early-morning gastropod removal as a solo activity: The tall grass slug trebuchet. Seriously, if either of the sprogs had been on the receiving end of the (totally accidental) launch, I think the screaming might still be in progress. Anyway, the slugs seems to like stretching themselves to their full length, helping them look like dew on stems and narrow plant leaves. But when you try to pick them, they rapidly change shape…
In the comments of one of my snail eradication posts, Emily asks some important questions: I'm curious about how exactly you reason the snail-killing out ethically alongside the vegetarianism. Does the fact that there's simply no other workable way to deal with the pests mean the benefits of killing them outweigh the ethical problems? Does the fact that they're molluscs make a big difference? Would you kill mice if they were pests in your house? If you wanted to eat snails, would you? Or maybe the not-wanting-to-kill-animals thing is a relatively small factor in your vegetarianism? Killing…
This morning, it seems like the pickings were somewhat slimmer. Part of this may have to do with the weekday morning time constraints (30 minute time limit). However, it seems like some regions of the yard that were swarming with gastropods over the weekend had only a few wee snails this morning. (It's possible that there are gastropod hiding places yet to be uncovered. That's a project for Saturday morning.) The wee snails may also be a sign that I'm making some progress -- the proportion of large snails relative to tiny ones was greatly decreased today. Since snails can't reproduce…
In light of our recent snail eradication project: Why does salt "melt" snails and slugs? (And how do people manage to prepare escargot without ending up with a big pot of goo?) To answer this question, let us consider the snail as seen by the chemist: The snail is an animal whose sliding-along-the-plants part (the foot) is made up of cells. Animal cells are, roughly, bags of aqueous solution and organelles wrapped in phospholipid bilayers (the cell membranes). For what we're looking at here, the important thing to know is that cell membranes are semipermeable membranes: some stuff travels…
Today was the first school day of our snail eradication project. This meant I had to get out to the yard a bit earlier (just after 6 AM), and that I had a fairly limited time to pick slugs and snails before I needed to get inside to propel the sprogs school-ward. Last night, when I was buying more salt, I noticed that rock salt was significantly cheaper than table salt, so that's the gastropod-melting agent that I'll be using until it runs out. Today, it seemed to do the job (while sounding a lot like gravel as I shook it to make sure the gastropods I had picked stayed picked). We may try…
This was another early morning out in the garden picking snails. It was, however, markedly yuckier than yesterday's foray. First, to those who have recommended alternate strategies for dissuading the gastropods, I've done the copper tape before. It seemed to help a little, but it was far from perfect -- some of the snails seemed not to mind getting a charge out of sliding across the copper. I think we may have a bit of copper tape in the garage. Perhaps I'll put it along the perimeter of our raised beds. The drowning-in-beer strategy we have tried. Each time, a few slugs and snails have…
It would appear that our rainy season is really over until next winter (which is not to say that it won't rain at all between now and then, just that things will be more dry than wet). So, it seemed like a good time to document some recent developments in the Free-Ride garden. Today, I'm presenting six photos from the garden for you to identify: Common name is fine -- no need to provide the Linnaean binomial unless you really feel like it. No, I'm not asking you to identify these plants because I've forgotten what I've planted. (Not this time, anyway.) Your identifications will germinate (…