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| Coffee cans,salt,slugs and sun
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Putting in my first garden I learned some valuable lessons.....I tilled my soil....added fish parts....ok fish entrails.....gross I know......it's good for the soil....I became an avid reader of Organic gardening.....although I thought one of their ideas for slug removal meant having another pet.....
They suggested a duck....now I've never had a duck....I did have chickens......Roosters are not my friends....I had two of the meanest Roosters....I had to arm myself with a 2x4 when I went into the coop.....oh well I had ended up with them from a friend....they had been an Easter gift....guaranteed laying hens.....yeah right......guaranteed laying hens my foot......one hen and two roosters.....I digress...
Back to the ducks....ducks eat slugs.....then you have to pen them.....buy them a pool or dig them a pond....keep the dogs from chasing them....buy duck food....worry about the Eagles eating them...No ducks for me....I opted for planting marigolds and the tried and true method of picking them slimey buggers up and disposing of the congealed snot monsters....Another method was using cut beer cans or copper leaving jagged edged and pouring a death trap of beer so they could mangle and drown to death......My husband said...."waste of good beer".......what does he know?....He was a waste of a human being.....should of used his beer.....Instead I enlisted the help of my son and my neighbors grandson......on advice from my Dad....he's on the evil side (the man looks like a troll) My daughter opted out....it was too gross for her.....
A couple of old coffee cans,salt and the sun....salted slugs anyone? A new springtime treat......Boys being boys love gross stuff.....and since they were too young to set off on their own to shoot BB guns....a slug hunting they will go.....The boys loved this......they would go out between the rows of peas,brocolli,cauliflower,tomatoes,onions,garlic,squash,pump kins,peppers and pick up the snot monsters toss them in their cans.....sprinkle them with salt and set them in the sun......Organic gardening also suggested staking the dead slugs as a warning.....Oh come on.....as if I want to stake crucifeid slugs in my garden....gross.....ever seen a dried up slug?....Looks like a dehydrated cat turd....The boys did a sufficient job of collecting and disposing of the snot monsters.....Slug problem solved!
Speaking of cats....I learned not to plant when my cats spent time with me in the garden......They would dig up the seed and usually poop in the mounds....rotten kitties anyway.....My dogs were fine....behaved themselves.....the cats dug up my mounds of zucchinis and left me cat tootsie roll presents.....I suppose that was better than the bird,squirrel and mole presents....Replant and squirt the cats with the hose.....The hose worked.....kept my garden cat poop free......
I decided organic gardening was not for the faint at heart.......especially if bugs gross you out...lady bugs rock in the garden, they eat those pesky aphids.....aphids are little creeps.....those huge horned worms you get on your tomato plants.....big time yuck....they got canned,salted and sunned as well..... You really have to rinse your produce well....especially spinach and lettuces.....lots of critters to be found.....it was worth it to me in the end.....my cauliflower wasn't so great the first year....broccoli either.....everything else was fine.....I even had a small haul of potatoes......I had containers on my deck where I grew radishes,green onions and herbs....not a bad haul for the first garden....
In the early fall after my last harvest of onions,potatoes and garlic.....the garden recieved its fill of fish guts.....salmon,trout and sturgeon (sturgeon fishing on the Columbia river is a blast I highly recommend it if you like to fish) ready for the spring.....
I never did try the duck idea.....two boys armed with coffee cans, salt and sun was the prescription that worked for me.....besides payment was a trip to Deer Creek for ice cream for a couple of slug wranglers....can't beat that.
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Posted by pitapie50 on 2008-04-21 08:29:50 | Rating: | Views: 159
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LOL...they boys loved it..they would chase the girls with their cans of slugs, they could chase the girls all they wanted as long as they didn't chase me.
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Posted by pitapie50
on 2008-04-21 08:50:46
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Hey Luci..It wasn't bad for my first one, they improved after that..a lot of trial and error. In the northwest they get Banana slugs, they get pretty big. At Northwest Trek they hold Banana slug races every year, its in Yelm Washington. I saw a baby Bison born there. I'm with you on the bugs. Little bugs don't bother me, though the big ones give me the creeps.
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Posted by pitapie50
on 2008-04-21 09:21:45
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Oops its in Eatonville not Yelm...Yelm is where the Ramtha commune is.
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Posted by pitapie50
on 2008-04-21 09:24:48
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LOL...they are kind of yucky. Greenish yellow and slimy. I'd love to live there again...maybe someday :)
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Posted by pitapie50
on 2008-04-21 12:17:58
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Thank you Gwatlan...This is when I lived in Washington state. When I had lived in Arizona, no garden we were under water restrictions like you are now. I had a few petunias in pots that was about it.
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Posted by pitapie50
on 2008-04-21 19:18:46
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I don't believe I've ever seen a slug. I did see a pink worm in my gram's driveway. Does that do anything for you?
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Posted by Faith
on 2008-04-22 16:21:58
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Faith I had never seen one until I had moved to Washington. I grew up in Phoenix, too hot for slugs there. I did however step on a night crawler bare footed, I was so grossed out I almost tossed my cookies.
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Posted by pitapie50
on 2008-04-23 06:46:11
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