WALKING THE ROWS

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At that time I was mulching heavily, sometimes the whole garden, sometimes year around as Ruth Stout advocated in her books. Slugs love the cool moist environment under a mulch. I had tried a number of methods all of which worked to some extent. Slugs are attracted to malt. If you put out dishes of beer, they will crawl into them and drown. A tip for those who use this method. Place the beer traps at the edges of the garden. Otherwise I think they just keep coming in and when you run out of beer or get tired of emptying the traps, there are even more slugs in the garden.

Slugs like cool, moist places like under a board. I have put boards down in the garden paths and sure enough would get quite a collection of slugs under the boards on a sunny day. A bit of a bore disposing of them, though.

None of these trap methods suited me for an acre market garden so I decided to make it an environment they wouldn't like. I have not tried making a barrier of diatomaceous earth around the garden or around the lettuce and cabbage but I had read that the sharp edges of this powdery material would deter slugs. Instead I came up with a method that suits me best. I just make the area around lettuce and cabbage as dry as possible. That means no mulch, even on the adjacent paths. I cultivate the top of the soil, making it a dry dust most of the time. I also mow closely all around the garden. This makes a casual barrier for the slugs since the short grass dries out early in the day. The lettuce and cabbage patches have to be kept fairly free of weeds as weeds will collect moisture and shad the ground keeping it moist during the day. These considerations work most of the time. I had more slugs in 1996 than I have for many years. One, it was a wet summer. Two, I did not till the garden last year and left one section in mulch from the year before. Still, they were manageable.

The Dangers of Over-Watering

You have probably noticed that where you have scratched the surface of cultivated soil, it is drier than the soil left alone, but do you know why? Do you remember capillary action from high school physics? The teacher had several glass tubes with small bores, smaller than a drinking straw. I know because I just tried one. When the ends of these tubes were put in water the water defied gravity and rose in them. It rose highest in the smallest tube. This is capillary action. Another way to demonstrate it is with two panes of window glass. Hold them together and dip one end in water. If water doesn't rise between them, they are too tight together. Sprinkle a little dirt on them, just enough to hold them apart a little and try again.

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