Chase Down Those Slugs...They don't run very fast!!

Well, it's plain here that the slugs are beginning to hatch. Tiny ones are clinging to the bottom of every container they can get to, it seems. Now is a good time to lay some "traps" for them. Put a piece of flat board just about anywhere and they will come and hide under it. Anything flat will do. I picked up a small, rectangular plastic container--I think it once resided in one of our coolers. There must have been a dozen baby slugs under there.

I dispatch slugs to the Happy Hunting Ground via a 64 oz plastic jug of ammonia/water. When it gets too gross, I put it in the garbage, with the cap on the jug of course. My friend puts hers in her compost and sometimes I do, too, but it's pretty nasty-looking AND smelling. She also carries her ammonia water in a pail, but I'm too squeamish. I tried that and I just didn't like seeing the yuck close up.

Meanwhile, indoors, I "garden," too:

This is an avocado pit/seed that has grown a root. The stem has not yet left the seed. It takes quite a long time to get these to spout, but if you put 4 half toothpicks into the "waist" of the pit, and put the flattest end into a small container with water in it up to the toothpicks, it will eventually sprout MOST of the time, and come to look like this:

Sometimes, the pit just rots and you toss it in the compost. Nothing ever is 100%--there are always a few misfires in the mix.

 

March is when I start my tomatoes, lettuce and spinach, all from seed. When the tomato plants get about six inches tall, I put them out on our sheltered front porch--lettuce and spinach starts can go out there, too. If the weather gets unseasonably cold at night, sometimes I get worried and bring them inside, just for the night. If they stay inside too long, they'll grow too tall and "leggy." So start some things--it's fun to watch them grow!! Spring WILL be here soon, at least according to the calendar. If Mother Nature has other ideas, she will win, of course.  

Time to Weed in the Pacific Northwest, Western Parts

Here in western WA, it's time to begin weeding. Put on your boots and get out there when it's not pouring!! Yes, when you poke your finger into your lawn, you will find MUD, but the weeds come out SOOOOO easily!! You will LOVE it!! Besides that, the SLUGS are starting to emerge. Get them when they're tiny and save yourself an infestation later in the summer.

For those of you in the eastern US, I'm sorry, but you will have to continue with your other hobbies and order seeds and peruse magazines about gardening. Your day will come--when that snow melts, you'll have your own mud!! Smile. Spring will eventually come, everywhere. And I'm not stupid--I DO know that winter is not done with us here. Late Feb and early March is when we often get our coldest weather of the winter, and we usually DO get "fake spring" in February--only difference this year is that we got it in January, too. Nothing about weather is predictable anymore.