Today's Lesson:
Things that will grow with no direct sunlight - kohl rabi, garlic, onions, radishes, artichokes, beets, dinosaur kale. Maybe the carrots?
Things that will not - everything else I planted in the winter garden, including but certainly not limited to bok choy, mustard greens, all the basils, mache, butterleaf lettuce, spinach, chinese kale. Maybe the carrots :(
Things that may well have made it, had it not been for the gluttony and ambition of a monster slug colony - acorn and butternut squash, brussels sprouts.
Pretty much everything that we started inside got munched up overnight by those motherfucking slugs. Who knew they could do so much damage in less than 24 hours?!? When I set out the beer trap the next day, I caught at least 20 happy fat slugs and 2 jerusalem crickets and didn't feel bad about it one bit. Douchebags.
Aside from discovering which of my seeds can survive in seriously low light, this development was a serious bummer. I had all of these lofty dreams of hearty winter vegetable soups, which are now clearly unlikely to come to fruition. Once the days start lengthening again (Thursday! Woot!), I may give the winter crops another go, even though I am wary of wasting seeds. And who knows, if I give them enough time, some of the seeds could well sprout once it warms up a bit in a couple months.
If I do end up resowing this winter, you'd better believe I'll be putting each little seedling inside a little fence of plastic cut from bottles and what not to keep the Colonial Slugs from stealing my thunder.
I too hate slugs. The ones we have here are ginormous and spotted and give me the heebie jeebies. My mother and I love playing "death-from-above" with a can of salt, but that is no good at all in the garden :( I did recently read that you can put strips of copper around the container your plants are in and the little fuckers will shock themselves :) Good times!!
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