In the past week I noticed my chard and toscano kale were being ravaged by slugs/snails or caterpillars, and I discovered in a cupboard, packs of beer with a January 2011 expiration date. Adopting the permaculture mantra, the problem is the solution, last evening I buried an old cup at rim level in between the victimized chard and filled it with beer. And this morning I was pleased to find a large slug:
I scooped out the slug and small wasp and will visit the site again tomorrow. And if the beer no longer attracts, well I have plenty more.
Some ideas don’t pan out. I thought siting a raised vegetable bed in the chicken paddock would be a good idea, give the birds something to snack on. After I noticed the chicken demolish the seedlings the instant they surfaced, I screened above the soil with chicken wire until I had a healthy crop of vegetables. It took just one morning for the chicken to eradicate the whole bed of vegetables. So I decided to dismantle the bed and relocate in my fenced in vegetable growing area. And while I was weeding the area, I noticed a large spider, a really large spider. It is on a 2×4 stud, with 3.5″ being the actual dimension of the side it is standing on. I know there are much larger spiders in the world, but for where I am this guy/gal is large.
Another view:
I am having much more success with sweet peppers this year. I planted them fairly close together and now, latish in the season, they are producing lots of peppers.
Finally, we just returned from our annual west coast visit, and no trip in Marin County can be complete without a visit to Muir Woods and its inspiring redwoods.
The day of our visit coincided with National Park Service Birthday so there were no fees. Here is a horizontal pic of the neighborhood.
