I spent the morning out at my plots in the community garden, harvesting the rest of the Asian greens that were on the verge of bolting. Seems the slugs had gotten to some of them before me – my mibuna was full of the little slimers. Not impressed. Surprisingly, this is my very first time dealing with slugs in the garden – although I do have experience with them from my garden centre days, when potted roses brought in from the west coast often had stowaways in the form of baseball-sized banana slugs. (I quickly learned Lesson #1: Never, ever unload live plants without wearing gloves!). I’ll never forget the time a co-worker thought she’d be cheeky and put a giant slug next to our boss’s coffee cup on the desk in the greenhouse…let’s just say, it’s a good thing our boss was in a pleasant mood that morning and was already on his second cup of java, because he hated slugs as much as I do.
I’m not certain if these three jokers had any advice about the slugs, but they were sure trying to tell me something:
I’ll bet they’re the little rascals that have pulled every last shallot out of my plot, pecked holes in them, and then left them to rot. I cannot figure out why magpies would want to eat shallots when there are (slugs) strawberries just a few plots away, but I do know I won’t be eating shallots that I’ve grown myself anytime soon. Oh well, shallots are…overrated. Or something. Right? 😉
What pesky critters are currently bothering your plants?
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Flowery Prose 
Our problem at the moment is badgers coming intot the garden each night; as fast as we block the holes they are coming through, they dig new entrances. They too have dug up my shallots, but they don’t eat them.
Oh my goodness, badgers! I recently had communication with a lady who was being bothered by moles, and she was furious at the holes they were digging. Badgers would be way worse than moles! 😦 Aren’t they quite aggressive, as well? I don’t know what I’d do if I found one in my yard. I’ve only ever seen them in the wild before.
The deer will eat everything in our town.
I’m so glad we don’t usually get deer in this part of the city…some of the outlying areas are plagued with them. They’re so hard to deter – I don’t know quite how a person can successfully keep them out of the garden. And they seem to eat EVERYTHING! You have my sympathies, that’s for sure!
Those magpies know something! Perhaps they have read that less meat and more greens are good for the body. Strange they haven’t got the fruit message though.
LOL! I love that! Our magpies are becoming vegetarians, perhaps! 🙂 Maybe the strawberries aren’t quite ripe enough for them….
I suspect that, yes, the strawberries are not quite ready for the pecking.
The joys of gardening! My problem this year as most years is snails and a few slugs too. Thank goodness I don’t get banana slugs here. Yuk! I can cope with snails though. It’s just a matter of planning on getting about 30 percent of your crop eaten… or in the case of my carrots about 95 percent! They’ve demolished the parsley too! (Oh, and I’ve heard shallots are highly overrated… 😉 )
I figured I was right about the shallots! 😉
Urghh…your poor carrots and parsley! I know as a gardener it’s necessary to take these things in stride, but that’s harsh. 😦
Yes, eeehw, slugs: used to have a lot of those in The Netherlands. Hosta’s were their fave dish. We would dig in small jars around plant and fill hem with beer. They would slide down an mass and drown happy and drunk;0) It made the beer look like a witches brew…
Try this with shalots: cut up a generous buch and caramelize them slowly with a little brown sugar and red wine and add dried cranberries or raisins. Add black pepper, salt and garlic and all spice and a dollop of marmalade and simmer for another 15 minutes. So jummy with sausages of porkchops. have a great weekend and thank for he lovely photos of the mag pies! Johanna
I may have to try the beer trick if I find any more slugs! I will keep a close eye on things this week.
I love your shallot recipe! It just so happens I have a handful of shallots leftover from last years’ harvest that I need to use up – that would be a perfectly delicious way to do it! Thanks so much for sharing, Johanna! Have a wonderful weekend! 🙂
Interesting that a couple of provinces over we do not have magpies. I wonder what makes them like life in the west, but not here in Ontario. The bigger the slug, the bigger the yuk factor and I have had some pretty big slugs in my garden! I was disheartened to see that something had put holes in one of my favourite hostas yesterday. They never look as nice shot through with insect bullet holes.
I did not know that there aren’t any magpies in Ontario – that is really interesting! I wonder why not…they seem to be really hardy, adaptable birds, and they eat pretty much anything. You’d think they’d be found all across the country. Most people here complain that we have way too many of them – they do seem to be very successful, and they’re fairly obnoxious. But I find their antics amusing, most of the time.
I hope you find the culprit that is hurting your hostas – that’s so infuriating!
Oh that is frustrating…we have a woodchuck that keeps sneaking in to the gardens…
Woodchucks! And here I thought magpies and slugs were bad. I’m thinking woodchucks would make a fairly large mess of the garden; they must be really annoying.
UGH, cannot stand slugs. They are the very reason I ALWAYS wear garden gloves. Touching those things accidentally makes my heart skip (and not in a good way!)
I’m with you! I dislike them INTENSELY! I always worry that I haven’t found them all in the garden, and that I might come across them while I’m in my kitchen, washing greens for supper. 😦
in latin america, gloves help guard against scorpion stings. we have slugs as well, but the scorpions are not fun at all!
Oh my goodness, I am so happy we don’t have to worry about scorpions here! In the very south of the province, there are some scorpions, but they don’t come this far north. I would be terrified to find one in the garden! Wearing gloves would be essential.
Deer, deer, deer and then racoons and possums. Squirrels. Mainly deer. Oh too depressing to think about it. I think you magpies are saying “slug, slug, slug… feed us slugs, slugs, slugs.”
Ugh…I couldn’t handle deer, racoons AND possums. Squirrels, I have…sigh. (Luckily for me, the deer stay on the hillside and don’t venture this way, and we have very few racoons in Alberta…so far. I don’t think possums live this far north, which is great). Deer are probably the worst – they’re so indiscriminate and they’ll eat everything in the space of an evening or morning. I can totally sympathize!
I agree – the magpies should get after the slugs, although the slimy critters’ presence seems reduced since we received a bit more sunshine (and I cut down the greens they were munching on). Hopefully I won’t see any more this summer. 🙂
Thanks for letting me camp out in your blog for a little while today. I had a great time and tried to leave my campsite as good as when I arrived. I’ll be back!
Thanks so much for stopping by – as always, much appreciated! 🙂