A day without slugs
My tomato plants are thriving! It's been less than a week since I transplanted them to their pots and placed them in the greenhouse and, despite the fact that the greenhouse is missing several key panes of glass, the plants have been so very happy. They've quadrupled in size in the past 5 days, and today I proudly gave the four strongest and tallest to my friend Emma so she might put them in her garden. My potted mint plant is very happy, as well, and I've been loving the chance to dart out to the greenhouse for a handful of mint leaves when I've made lemonade or iced tea.
Both of those iconic American drinks, however, take a little bit of work on this English isle, for neither is common at all. That is to say, there is a common drink called lemonade that is available at every bar, but it's actually what we'd call 7-Up or Sprite or, to use the generic term, a lemon-lime soda pop. The church I'm volunteering at has a fully licensed bar that we open after the evening service, and I work behind the bar once a month. The first time I was there, the team leader asked me to check the lemonade and see if it was OK, so I pressed the little button marked "L" on the soft drink dispenser (or, as they'd say, fizzy drink dispenser) and poured myself a glass, thinking it was strange that the lemonade was carbonated. I tasted it and announced, "Something's wrong with the lemonade. It tastes like Sprite." I was soon set straight--that is lemonade in England. I also quickly learned that a popular bar drink is a shandy, a mixture of "lemonade" and lager from the tap (our lager on tap at the Trent Vineyard bar is Carlsberg Export, and I've grown to quite enjoy an occasional cheeky half of this pleasing little brew). I've since learned that what we Americans call lemonade is most often referred to here as "cloudy lemonade" and is served as a specialty bottled drink in the better pubs. However, my English brother Dave brought home a bottle of lemon squash (concentrated fruit drink that is diluted with water before serving) that's actually made with real lemons and sugar, and it's delicious. When I mix in cold water, ice cubes and mint leaves, it's like I'm sitting on my Great Uncle Roger's Colorado farm, enjoying his signature summer beverage.
Iced tea is, of course, a complete anomaly here in England. My British friends can't imagine why I'd want my tea served over ice. I suppose the fact that all hot tea drunk here has added milk has something to do with it. And, in fact, while the Brits do certainly drink enormous quantities of tea (despite the growing popularity of coffee), they usually just drink plain old black tea. It's nothing like home, where herbal teas and green teas and white teas and specialty flavored teas abound. I've always been a tea drinker so I'm at home here, but having milk in my tea took some getting used to. Now I love how it makes the tea creamy and mild, but when I've brewed myself a cup of tea and poured it over ice, I definitely eschew the milk. A few homegrown mint leaves from the greenhouse are the perfect and only necessary addition.
The main problem I've encountered thus far in an English garden is slugs. I suppose they're also snails, but when I find them, they are minus the shell and merely a sticky, slimy little creature hiding in a pot or under the leaves of a plant, like in my mint plant. The best thing about the slugs, if there can be a best thing, is that they leave a shimmery, glittering trail on the leaves they've crawled over. In fact, I would even consider the beglittered leaves somewhat pretty, if I wasn't so disgusted. Consider the day I visited the greenhouse to discover my young mint plant sparkling with slug "glitter." Several leaves had also been chewed through. I merely pulled off the shiny leaves and left the plant.
It wasn't until a few days later, when I was busy sorting through the dozens of dusty, spider-webbed pots that have sat untouched for a decade, that I started to come across the slugs themselves. At first I saw one slithering along the rocks. It was fat and happy and utterly disgusting. I pulled on my gardening gloves, picked up the squirmy thing, and dumped it in the compost bin. I figured it would be happy tunneling through the compost until the rubbish collectors picked it up and squashed it with all the other garden waste. A few minutes later, I was happily sorting pots when I realized I'd somehow grabbed a slug with my bare hands. I squealed and shook it off before wiping my hand thoroughly on the grass. I know it's silly--I have no problem picking up worms--and also prejudiced--I carefully, almost lovingly return the worms to the soil so they can continue their good work, whereas I chuck the slugs into the bin as quickly as possible. It's not fair to the slugs. They can't help being slugs. But they are gross!
English Dad told me I could use slug pellets or other poisons to keep them away from my plants, but I prefer to make my gardening as organic as possible, especially when dealing with food plants, so he suggested I simply check the plants morning and evening, pulling off all the slugs I encounter.
"I've found that if I do that at the beginning of the growing season, they don't tend to come back," he said.
So that's what I've been doing, making a daily or twice daily check of my pea plants in the ground, my lettuce mixture in the big pot, and my four dozen or so potted herbs and tomatoes in the greenhouse. It takes a bit of time looking at the leaves and checking under the pots, but it's worth it when I find the slimy little creatures. And the good news is that I haven't seen a slug or traces of a slug for three days!
I told my mom about this on one of my frequent calls to my Arizona hometown, and also about my prejudice of them. Then she said, "I know exactly how you feel. I used to get so annoyed by the slugs in our garden back in Minnesota that I'd squash them with a rock. But eventually I got to the point where I just squashed them with my bare hands."
At least I throw them into the compost bin, where they can spend the remainder of their days happy and content eating their way through leaves and grass, before that cruel moment when they're squashed by the trash compactor.
Comments
Stephanie - I live near Oxford in England, and your slug comments caught my eye
Through the main part of the summer we suffer a plague of slugs. My wife went slug-collecting early one morning, and gathered about 800 (yes, she really was counting). She got another 300 in the evening. Each year is like that. We've encouraged hedgehogs and frogs, as each will eat slugs, and we've tried all organic methods of defeating them. In the end the most successful antidote is to keep the garden really tidy with no long, damp grass or undergrowth because that's where they rest and breed.
We're moving to Chicago area from September. Please tell me there are no slugs there.
The only thing we might desire more is a decent cup of hot tea. Maybe we'll offer courses on how to brew tea.
Posted by: Alistair Brown | May 13, 2008 08:00 AM
Well, Alistair, I don't think you will find 1,100 slugs in one day in your Chicago garden!!! That is a truly astounding (and revolting)number. I didn't get to do much gardening in my Chicago place, but I never did come across a slug in the little bit I attempted. And in my four years as a home and garden writer in the area, I never wrote about slugs. So that's got to be a good sign, because heaven knows I wrote about every other garden pest.
I'm sure you will enjoy your hot tea as an expat, even during a sticky, steamy Chicago summer. One of my English friends, now living in America, tells of the general disbelief when she requests a cup of tea during the summer months.
"You want HOT tea?" one southern girl drawled from her beverage stand on Washington D.C.'s National Mall. "HOT tea?"
But at least now you know what will happen if you order lemonade!
Posted by: Stephanie Fosnight | May 13, 2008 08:13 AM