It’s that time of the year. Delicate quivering seedlings in a bid for survival. First lack of rain. Then rain. Then the slug army moves in. Go out at night with a torch and the soil is a squirming frenzy of tiny black slugs, crawling over the once emerging cauliflower plant leaves, reducing them to desolate stalks.
I start to pick them off, their slime coating my fingers with a glue like substance. I smear them on the pavement stones and squish them with a wellington boot. I tried plastic bottles cut in half as protectors. They laughed with glee when they saw them. A perfect medium to slime up and gain a quick route to their goal, my once healthy cauliflower plants.
Beer pots. I resorted to yeasty pots of beer in a bid to catch them. There must be hundreds of them, crawling out of the stone wall. Perhaps one of the problems is the ground is bare and there are no other plants to feed off. They seem to have regarded the peas with disdain.
The pot of basil outside the back door is a must have for slugs. Long brown ones slip and slide joyously towards the pungent aroma. At least I can see them coming. Then the tender and cautiously emerging dahlia shoots! I discovered their mangled stumps today. Oh how I am losing this war. Slugs are an important part of the ecosystem but how can we live together amicably?
Gardening in a Jungle 