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The Battle of the Slugs

This weekend I focused on slug and snail hunting, as more than half of the vegetable plants that I set out last week have been eaten by the little beasts. My perferred method is to walk around early in the morning, just after the sun comes out and slash the litte pest with my garden knife, a very satisfying method.

I also thinned out the raspberry plants, adding a new row on the edge of the buckwheat patch.

New raspberry plants

I also planted three rows of peas among the bark mulch. I am hoping the slugs will have a hard time reaching the plants once they start to grow. Probably just wishful thinking, but we’ll see.

Three rows of peas

Today its finally raining, hopefully this will spur growth of what I have planted to date.

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The first seeds of 2018

We live in zone 7b, it is a bit too early to plant anything outside, but usually around the end of March I can plant kohlrabi, peas, onions and some salad varieties outside.

I usually purchase kohlrabi plants from our local garden store, but this year I decided to try starting kohlrabi from seeds. A couple months ago someone mentioned on a Youtube channel that I watch that you can use empty toilet paper rolls to start seeds. The advantage of this method is that when it is time to plant you can plant the whole roll, the plants will continue to grow, and the cardboard will eventually become worm food.

In any case it sounded like a good way to repurpose the rolls, so why not.

Seed starting in toilet paper rolls

While I was at it I decided to try peas as well, so I planted 6 rolls with peas and 6 rolls with kohlrabi. I also planted 3 of each in some biodegradable pots that I found at our garden center.