Slugs

One of the downsides of low tunnels and cold frames is that they make great homes for slugs.  Slugs wake up when soil temps rise in the spring, and eat the youngest, tenderest morsels they can find.  They like cool spring temperatures and moisture.  Can you imagine a more perfect environment than a low tunnel packed with young seedlings?  Even better, all the plastic pots make great things to hide under during the day, and the water dripping from the plastic in the morning wets and ruins the slug-stopping pellets I use elsewhere in the garden.

Slug trails inside the low tunnel plastic

The one good thing I can say about the slimy, yucky, broccoli-destroying little buggers is that they do make pretty, lacy patterns in the condensation on the inside of the plastic.  I think water doesn't condense as easily on the slime trails they leave during the night.

My First Official Harvest

Lettuce and spinach picked from my low tunnel

Here is my first official harvest of 2011: a small bowl of lettuce and spinach from my low tunnel, picked to eat with hamburgers on Saturday night.  In an attempt at improved record-keeping (to help justify the many $$ spent on my garden each year) I decided to weigh everything that made it to the kitchen this year; this harvest was about 2oz.  At least, it was before I found the nasty, slimy, fat slug on the underside of the giant leaf on top.  I made N throw half that leaf out.  Logically, I know the slug could have crawled over any and all of these leaves, but somehow I just can't make myself eat something a slug was just picked off of.  Yuuuuuuughghghghghghgh.

Munched Broccoli

Something has been eating my poor little broccoli transplants! I suspect slugs, especially with our sudden plethora of rain. Out of four transplants only one survivor has a leaf left.

I think if the plants have enough energy to put on another set of leaves they will be fine - slugs are too lazy to climb very high and like to pick on lower leaves. I'm going to put some pet-safe slug pellets around these plants and see if they can be salvaged.