Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Sláinte Slugs!

While my wife was picking lettuce this afternoon in the garden, she found a few slugs. We have had a very wet year, in fact we have surpassed our yearly average already. So, I decided to toast the little buggers and give 'em a drink. I have read about beer traps, but never needed to use one. So, I buried a dish up to an inch from the top and put some Keystone in it. We'll see if I catch any.


After finishing the rest of the 'stone, I had to take a picture of the beans. They have completely outgrown their allotted space. If you look closely you can see a few ticked off pepper plants getting caught up in the mix.


I reached a personal record in my compost pile, 150 degrees. Yes, I have a compost thermometer (pause for snickering). The science of compost fascinates me to no end. I have been experimenting with composting coffee grounds obtained from a local coffee shop. I have been mixing them in with a little wood ash (to counteract any extra acidity) and then buried with last fall's leaves (and of course kitchen and garden scraps).


We are saving peas as next year's seeds for the first time. These are snap peas. I ended up saving way more than will fit in my garden, but they won't go to waste.


This tiny little guy is an alpine strawberry, we started them indoors this winter for funs and we finally got to eat one. Although they don't get much bigger than this, I picked it a bit too early and it didn't taste that great. I picked it in my zeal to win the harvest over the birds. I won, they lost, it was very tart.

6 comments:

  1. I caught zero slugs. I'm not complaining, but I did waste a beer! Anyway I think it is because the sun came out followed by the drying wind. I'll leave the trap out for a few days.

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  2. The garden looks great!! Lots of progess. The strawberry is kinda small, but I know that's how they grow. I wonder if that is a special thermometer or a kitchen one? I would love to know the temp of our pile here.
    Keep up the good work!!
    SG

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  3. I don't know how special the thermometer is, but I can tell you it has about a two foot probe to get deeper into the pile. I bought it specifically for that purpose. It comes from the brand ComposTumbler.

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  4. Ha!! You should send that picture of that strawberry to www.cuteoverload.com!!!

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  5. We have been using beer traps in our strawberries for years. We usually use smaller tin cans (perhaps the 8 oz. tomato sauce, or perhaps a little bigger), and bury then about the same depth you mentioned, perhaps a bit deeper. Within a few days we usually have dozens of slugs drowned in our cans. I can't remember if we've ever used Keystone, but we bought the cheapest stuff we could find.

    I wonder if the angle and/or the lip on the paper cup makes a difference, as our cans are straight up and down. No idea, just guessing.

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  6. We typically don't have slug problems. It usually isn't wet enough (last year being the exception), but using tin cans does sound like it would work better. Thanks for the tip.

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