It’s not fair! I’m right at the top of the food chain, I’ve got a spine and opposable thumbs and everything, and yet I still have to compete for my food with bloody SLUGS! I’ve just lost a second lot of courgette plants and something has got to be done.
I saw a friend’s lovely new veg patch and beer traps last weekend. I think I’ve tried beer traps before, but I seem to remember going about it a bit half-heartedly because I didn’t really expect it to work. Nothing really seems to work against slugs. Still, I was in the mood to see at least a few of the little bastards die so I thought I’d try it again.
Burying the pots was a bit of a faff, but not quite as difficult as finding a non-Muslim shop that would sell me lager around here - I ended up going all the way to Sainsbury’s and then spent ages persuading them to give me some Carling for 50p because the cans were so badly dented. By this time I was really starting to resent having to get the beer in for the slugs when they’ve already had at least ten marigolds, eight courgette plants, three broad bean plants, a dozen sunflowers and quite a few strawberries. I think my previous attempt at making beer traps might have ended with me just drinking all the beer at about this point, which probably at least made me feel better about all the slug eaten plants for a while.
However.
I persevered this time and I can’t believe it - they really do all obligingly drown themselves! Some of the pots were full to the brim with dead slugs the next day, and I actually had to empty them out to make room for any more.
I then started working out how much it would cost me to buy six cans of lager every time I went to the allotment and decided that it would be a good idea to sieve all the slugs out and re-use the beer instead. This bit is disgusting and if you’re eating then you shouldn’t scroll any further down the page…
Yuck. In a satisfying sort of way. I wonder whether they like elderflower champagne?
3 comments:
Mmmm! Inspirational!! If you cooked them (which of course as a vegan I wouldn't, though I have fond memories of snails in garlic butter) would they already be marinated?
I read Complicity a few months ago, and enjoyed it, except I couldn't believe that the scruffy good-for-nothing mostly-zonked journalist anti-hero would in real life achieve such a excruciatingly randy and athletic lover. My reaction was that she was merely the author's fantasy, writ large. But then I was probably jealous.
Ew. Yet at the same time yay...? I think...?
How very confusing.
Do you have a local pub? Round here they are often very happy to give the beer slops they otherwise have to throw away to gardeners.
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