Fun in the overcast: Five things I learned in the garden this morning

1) "Leave them alone and they will come home" really works.  Particularly with gastropods.  Unfortunately, "home is where the heart is" and slugs just love my daylilies; snails are mad about my kale.

2) A slug is quite reminiscent of a leech - particularly when observed on one's bare calf.

3) Slugs and snails are bipartisan and apparently not racist.  They climb on each other's back with no regard for size, color, shell or lack thereof and form a great pile, then sit back and let the big grandmother (granddaddy?) climb up over the top of the slug holding chamber (it's a technical term).  I dare say our congress is good at the sitting back and letting the big guy do the work.  As to the rest, perhaps they could take note here.

4) The only humanitarian thing for me to do (for myself - if it were for the little mollusks, would it not be gastropoditarian?) is get a bigger, deeper slug holding chamber - with a lid.  Why, you ask? Because every time I return from a trip to the slug relocation location I tell myself "why not just squish the next one and get on to the next garden task?" but just as I think that my eye zones in on a little baby snail - or slug - and I think "why you?"

5) My gastropod eradication assistant, aka Yogi, my cat, is not as sweet and innocent and clumsy as he seems.  The third time I keeled over backwards and barely avoided landing on my ass this morning, something jarred loose in my memory banks and I thought of a video I saw on the innerweb of cats deliberately tripping up their comrades - knocking them off ladders, pushing them into tubs of water... you get the picture.  Ok, Yogi, I'm onto you now!

Bonus insight:  As it turns out, whilst gathering daylily seeds, it is not a good idear when one's hands are full to hang a pod from one's teeth to keep it separate from the others.  Why, yes, this did dawn on me as I pried a reluctant slug from atop a pod this morning.... ewwwww....

k then.


Check out Slug Queen Eugene

ON THE OTHER HAND...

The good thing about just wandering out to the garden to look at all the lovelies is that you don't have to get into your de-slugging attire (rubber gloves, rolled up sleeves, hair pinned back, bucket in hand).

The bad part is that you will surely become distracted - by slugs. Well, slugs and snails.  Let's just call them slugs this morning, for, uh... fun.

The good part is that you will get so much exercise making not one but - yeah, that's right, five trips to the secret slug re-location drop-off point, whilst, each trip, balancing a group of two to nine little monsters....er... slugs... on whatever tiny morsel of bark chip or such you managed to find handy.

The bad part is that the gnarliest, fattest, biggest slug of them all will in fact be the least sluggish and will awaken, become curious and crawl onto your hand en route to the aforementioned point.  Of course, on that particular trip, you will be carrying gastropod eradicator pods in each hand and you will thus be rendered helpless to thwart said slug's progress up your wrist.

Ah...... good morning!

10 GARDENING TIPS FROM A PRO

(What?  I am pro-gardening.  Everyone knows that.)

1) If the weather forecast predicts a low of 36 in your town, yes, your yard will frost over.  No, your neighbors' yards will not frost over.  No, no-one will believe you.  Yes, the worst area of frost will be where you recently planted the most expensive flowers.

2) If your irises are over-run with slugs, here is a foolproof method for saving them: Simply plant daylilies among them.  Problem solved.  

3) If your daylilies are over-run with slugs, simply plant celery among them.

4) If your celery is over-run with slugs, go buy some cause it is either poison that shit or post a full time slug patrol.

5) The best time to pull weeds in the Willamette Valley is constantly.

6) Cayenne pepper placed under tulips will keep the moles from eating them - until they are in mid-bloom.

7) Cats do not deter moles.  They are too busy lying in the plant pots.

8) Cats also enjoy lying on freshly planted beds.

9) Cats also lie in established beds......

10) Lying in wait to kill birds.