Tom Robbins wrote in Another Roadside Attraction that, "Human beings were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another." This week I've been transporting tea and beer from one place to another on my condo patio.
The tea is the leachate from my vermicomposting bin. I'm diluting the run-off with water to fertilize my patio container garden. The worm bin is full of red wigglers of all sizes, having a big family hoe-down, and converting watermelon rinds into high quality compost.
The beer is stale suds left out in shallow containers. Yes. I'm a slug-hater. I wanted to peacefully coexist, but the marauding hordes of nocturnal slugs wearing their saggy pants and backward caps have devoured my dill, cilantro, rosemary and nasturtiums. I want these underage gastropods to drown in Busch way past its born-on date. Cease chewing graffiti tags into my leaves!
© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder
2 comments:
We had a terrible infestation of slugs here when we first moved in. As soon as the sun went down, they were all over the sidewalks and slithering through the grass and wreaking havoc in the garden. Sometimes a slug even found its way through a crack and got in the house, where it immediately took up residence in the cat food dish.
Two things helped in eradicating them. First, we got new neighbors who started farming the land adjoining our yard. (The land had formerly been in a conservation program where it was mowed once a year and the clippings were left lying to build up the soil -- a perfect shady slug habitat. Second, we had a severe drought, and I haven't seen a slug since.
I hope the beer traps help. They also like yeast and water, if beer is not at hand.
I'm sure I need to clean out more of the decaying material under the myrtle groundcover. Another job for the to-do list.
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