Summer Solstice - Triple Feature!

It has been a very wet and cold midsummer here on Malcolm Island, so we are a few days behind with this post.  But to compensate we bring you a triple feature:  more progress on the garden, a brand new orchard, and "Once Upon a Slime: A Recipe to Deter Slugs".

Garden Progress

The garden continues to grow, with transplanted garlic, raspberries, and strawberries.  We set up a hoop house with re-used conduit pipe and leftover plastic for tomatoes and peppers.  Peas, brassicas, carrots, beets, and 313 cooking onions are planted in new beds.  Until we make more space, potatoes and salad greens are planted in old buckets, drawers, and wooden closet found at the recycling center.  Twenty-one fruit trees and twenty-one blueberry bushes are being staged in the fenced garden until the orchard is ready.

Peppers and tomatoes in hoop-house

Carrots and peas

Power potatoes in buckets

Brassicas (kale, brocolli, collards), lettuce in old closet, and some flowers in old planters.  Blueberries waiting to be put in orchard.

Putting in the Orchard

We staked out an orchard for 24 trees on 15 foot spacing.  The fence will be 60 by 90 feet.  First we cut 33 posts from the nearby forest, sharpened the ends, and tiger torched them crispy to reduce rot.

Pounding posts with a little help from big yellow friends.

Digging holes so the rain gets in stops my mind from wandering....

After 33 posts, 21 holes and 300 feet of netting and wire, we added a gate to keep out the deer.  Next comes the tree and berry planting.  Note the amazing and versatile Vermont Cart gifted to us by long-time Sointuligans.

Once Upon a Slime - A Recipe to Deter Slugs

We went “downtown” the other day on a mission. Slugs had eaten all our baby kale plants. What to do?  We hit the hot spots including the Recycling Centre and Community Garden and came home with loads of suggestions plus tales of woe and success. Here’s a mash up recipe inspired from that trip plus a few ideas of my own.

Ingredients:

Servings: countless slugs    Time: endless and then repeat

citrus peels

garlic powder

dried lavender

garlic scapes, diced

onion greens, diced

Vaseline

beer or mixture of milk, yeast and honey

Directions:

After covering each transplant with a bottomless pot*, spread generously inside and outside with garlic powder, dried lavender, diced garlic scapes and/or diced onion greens.  

Add a slathering of Vaseline to the outside of the pot.

For fresh zesty flavour, make grapefruit domes and orange peel tents and place randomly throughout the garden.  Try not to slip on them after rainstorms.

Pair with your favorite craft beer or a non-alcoholic mixture of milk, yeast and honey. Place in plastic containers with holes cut near top, replace the lid and bury an inch or two in the soil.

Cover with Reemay garden cloth.

Check morning and evening.

*bottomless pots on their own seem to work better against sow bug damage than slugs. Slugs just climb on up and over.

Alternative ingredients include eggshells, sand paper, Safer Slug Bait and copper tape.