A true sign that summer is here is when strawberries begin to appear in my garden. They remind me of the huge bowls of them my grandmother, Nana Doc, would prepare for family picnics and get togethers, pick-your-own where we'd sneak more into our mouths than the cardboard baskets, Little Sister Fanny with blond ringlets innocently denying eating them whilst having the red juice smeared all round her mouth, and Tess Durbeyfield being seduced by strawberries offered by Angel Clare.
I love strawberries.
They're simple yet sophisticated, seductive in their shiny red plumpness either perfectly shaped or almost indecently nobbly, and simply the most decadent food ever when sun warmed and plucked straight off the plant into my mouth. The indulgent pleasure of sitting in my garden eating them is only matched by sharing this simple delight...but not with slugs or woodlice. I'm getting pretty fed up of wandering into the garden each morning to find that the luscious looking nearly ripe strawberry I'd had my eye on the night before has been devoured. So last Thursday, having had a couple of pints of pop, I returned home to enjoy another strawberry related activity: late night slug hunting. Slightly inebriated I rifle through my camping equipment to find my head torch and then I'm ready and armed. Should any neighbours look over they must think I've cracked as I make my way around the garden in an unladylike squatted position picking over leaves and hurling slugs over the fence. Yet this isn't the worst of my crimes. I am normally a fairly compassionate person who follows a vegan diet and hates the idea of killing another living thing. Slugs are my exception. Over the fence is the Worcester branch of the St. John's Ambulance and onto their car park land my flying slugs. It's survival of the fittest; part of me hopes they squelch their slimy way somewhere else knowing they are not welcome in my garden, the other part quite enjoys the irony of slugs being run over by ambulances. So there's the truth. I would say I'm sorry, but I'm not.
There should be a Wallace & Gromit-style pest control outfit for slugs & snails (rather than for rabbits) for people with qualms about killing them. I think it would put people's minds at rest if they could get rid of the slugs from their garden knowing they were going to a "slug paradise" where they could live out the rest of their days in a slug-oriented environment without bothering anyone.
ReplyDeleteOr you could try the saucers-of-beer approach. Kills slugs & I hear hedgehogs consider it a treat, too.
I wish hedgehogs could make it into my garden as I hear they like slugs with their beer.
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