May was a busy but nerve-wracking month in the Midlife Garden. After starting our cut flowers in storage boxes, they germinated quickly and copiously, but by April we face the challenge of what to do with all those healthy looking seedlings when they outgrew their boxes but looked a little too delicate to go outside.
We kept them protected in the greenhouse, with the lid off, but soon started getting leggy like a load of seedling Peter Crouches. So, on 16th April, we took a gamble and planted them out in the raised beds, weeks before any theoretical last frosts. They were not entirely unprotected, though, as we circled the little darlings with an array of glass to create a cold frame out of the raised bed. And we kept a supply of fleece in case of frosts and kept a watchful eye on the weather forecast.
Incredibly the plants survived, mainly due to the unpredictable frosts not arriving. Instead, it has been soaking wet, which has bought about the more predictable destruction at the hands (if that is the right term) of the invertebrates.
Every year I plant out wonderful, healthy seedlings, expecting an abundant crop, only to see them dismantled by slugs. It is the horticultural equivalent of insanity – doing the same thing over again, with the same catastrophic result. Normally, after the initial dismay and a couple of single malts, I am reasonably sanguine. But not this year. Oh no, not for the summer of 2024. We need flowers. And lots of them. And on the 13th July.
We started looking up every means of delaying, defeating or destroying the slimy assailants. We started with beer traps, which proved to be very popular, but when it rains the beer is diluted and, anyway, there still seemed to be quite a few teetotal slugs who avoided the alcoholic orgy to feast on the cosmos and sunflowers.
There are conscientious gardeners online who have pseudo-scientifically tested all the usual remedies with varying results. Eggshells, coffee grounds, gravel, sand, and talcum powder were partially or wholly ineffective – depending on the ground conditions. But one method I had not come across was the use of brambles to create a barrier. I have tried that on the sunflowers. It is the second planting of sunflowers – the first ones ended up as stumps, alongside jam jars full of beer sodden slugs who did not make it to the sunflower feast – but, for now, the brambles seem to be working.
Another way to rid your garden of slugs is nightly hunting expeditions down the garden. It is a dispiriting sight, seeing a load of slugs heading across the grass like a bunch of post-apocalyptic Mad Max crazies hell-bent on destroying your crops. The other night we came home late and found the Bells of Ireland covered in the slime balls. The Bells are the potential signature flower of the summer – it will be first time we have managed to grow them to maturity if we actually achieve it, so the attack on them was the final straw.
Now we have gone all medieval. By which I do not mean hot oil, burning fat, slings, arrows or just a pike or two. We have decided to use moats to keep them at bey since we do not think slugs and snails can swim. And, so far, it seems to be working.
