Slug Tossing

In the late evening of spring, when twilight stretches its blue-purple sky over us into the hours of the kids’ bedtime routine, when it feels like summer could be just around the corner, but we’re too easily chilled to walk outside without long sleeves, I sneak out. Even the dog doesn’t hear me leave.

At this hour there is a surreal quiet to the outdoor world and to my garden that must be enjoyed now now now, because all too soon we will be inundated with the sounds of laughter over a barbecue or a late-night mowing session by that one neighbor who doesn’t mind disturbing the rest. Before we know it, we will wish for sunset to deliver us from the heat of the day. We’ll believe that every day can be spent splashing in the pool or swinging in the hammock, and the sensation of summer with expand to subsume all hours, all the days lining up to compete for sunburns and water gun fights and a shady lunch under the deck umbrella.

Yet here I am, now, in this pause between inhale and exhale that is late spring/not quite summer. The squash and pumpkin sprouts have yet to run, and the leftover cover crop around them threatens to outcompete their slow growth. It won’t, but it’s nice to see it try. I’m out here to duck into the warm cover of the greenhouse because I know I will want kale for my breakfast tomorrow. I could venture out in the morning. There’s enough light even at 5am. But it feels rude, like yanking the warm blanket off a sleeping child who is cozy from their own body heat.

Breakfast, anyone?

Do my tender sprouts really deserve to be loved at the same level as my human children?

Why not? It’s not a zero-sum game here. I have love to go around.

The stillness that was outside is even quieter within the sheltered walls of double-layered plastic, and the light is every bit as good. I close the door behind myself to keep in the warmth. Breathe deep, smell the green of tomato plants, the strangely cloying scent of kale and arugula blossoms (not awful but not nice really). Tonight there is a crane fly perched just inside the door taking refuge near the flowering peas. Spiders have taken up residence inside the frames of both doors, and I take great care not to disturb their webs when I open and close things.

Don’t sniff the kale flowers.

It can be challenging to invite pollinators into an enclosed setting, and so I often allow a few things to go to flower for this purpose alone. The kale can get taller than me if I let it, long stems of yellow blossoms sprouting wildly from the tops and calling out to every winged bug in the vicinity.

Did you know that bees and flies like the smallest flowers best?

I know I need to tear this kale out to make room for the smaller melon sprouts slowly growing beneath. Root competition is real. But the kale is still feeding me, and we are many weeks from a ripe melon as a possibility. It’s been years since I tried growing melons anyway, and I have no idea if it will produce anything. The kale, however, is right here.

Snagging kale leaves has become an art after all this time—bend the leaf down from the stem a bit, then yank upward and watch it pop off with no resistance. There are three kinds of kale just in the greenhouse right now. More is growing in the outside beds for summer and fall. You’re not about to get some philosophical vegan rant out of me. I enjoy mine with a side of bacon, thank you. But mornings are barely tolerable without an omelet of kale, sauteed mushrooms, onions, possibly garlic scapes, or whatever else is on hand and in season from the yard.

It is, of course, once my hand is loaded with deeply lobed green leaves that I begin to see that I have crashed a party. I’ve been chasing down the culprits of those tiny holes and chewed patterns in leaves for weeks, and here they all are, dancing their little gastropod hearts out in an early evening rave at the edible forest that is my greenhouse garden.

Slimy little twerps. That’s organic basil!!

Slugs.

Dozens of slugs.

Surely hundreds of slugs, though I will never find them all.

Wherever you garden, if you’re lucky enough to do so, you’ve got some kind of pest you deal with. Around here in the PNW that #1 critter is slugs. Okay, okay, there are plenty of others here as well, but slugs are ubiquitous even in the wildest hot summers.

Last weekend my youngest son helped me set beer traps for them. Little plastic yogurt cups cleaned out from their afterschool snack, stale beer (a really nice microbrew by the way) poured in halfway or so, dig a little hole, set the cup in so that the edge is flush with the soil, wait for the slimiest visitors to take the bait and slowly drown.

“Does it hurt?” he asked as we poured the dark brown chocolate stout into the cups.

And I’m sure you know what I did. I lied. “Well, no, I’m sure it doesn’t. They crawl in to have a long sip, and it tastes so good they fall asleep and just don’t wake up.”

He nodded, satisfied. “Heeeere, sluggy sluggy,” he began to call out to them.

Holes. Holes in my kohlrabi.

But tonight, kale in hand, my eyes suddenly picking out the teensy bodies of little gray squiggles on every lettuce leaf, on what’s left of the basil, on that one goddamn leaf of the cucumber plant since they ate all the others, and I am torn. “STOP EATING MY STUFF!” I want to shout at them.

But also.

“I don’t really want to kill you.”

And I don’t know if it hurts when they drown. I don’t know.

You see how this one knows it’s in trouble? And that poor melon plant!

But that kale was still in my hands, and I know my purpose in growing my garden. It’s to put food on my table. It’s to connect my children to the dirt that sustains them. It’s to feel like I am part of something bigger and smaller at the same time, and those slugs are no less part of it than I am.

“Okay,” I sighed at all three-hundred of them feasting on my salad greens in the waning evening light. “You win.” I set down the kale (in a safe spot of course) and began plucking them one by one into an emptied cup with no beer or toxins within. I lost count after I passed the fortieth one. If I’d stayed out there much longer my wife might have come looking for me. With each one I captured another three came into my field of vision, and I knew I’d have to call it and start again the next night.

Full cup of slime in hand, I gathered my kale, closed up the greenhouse, and walked off to the far side of the yard where the kids have their own fort. This is the same place we release the frogs who wander too close to the house or get caught in the driveway. Setting slugs free is not nearly as rewarding as watching a frog leap off into the underbrush. But there is a kind of satisfaction in flinging the cup contents over the fence and into the woods beyond. Don’t worry, they don’t have bones to break on landing.

I will share with the slugs.

I will share with the frogs.

I will (grudgingly) share with the rabbits.

I will tolerate the squirrels.

I will worry about the racoons.

Gardening is always about taking a risk. You can build as many fences as you want, cover rows with reemay, use bird netting. You can spray toxins. You can set up motion-activated sprinklers. And you still won’t keep the wild out of your controlled space.

Do you really want to?

I want to hear the bees happily buzzing in the raspberry canes, their lazy hum the background to my weeding. I want to find clutches of ladybug eggs under the hazelnut leaves. I want to watch the ants farming their little aphid friends for sugar. I want my children to build safe havens for the millipedes out of leaves and sticks. I want to sit still long enough that crickets nearby start singing. I want my greenhouse to be the landing site of butterflies. I want the thrill of shouting at rabbits like I’m Farmer MacGregor. I want my walnut tree growing nuts so amazing that squirrels come visiting from other neighborhoods. I want the fledgling birds to know they can safely forage under my blueberry bushes.

If you’re in the neighborhood, you can also come in and steal a snow pea off the vine. Just don’t drink the beer you find out there. Come inside and ask for a cold one.

Your trans friend,

Robin