On slugs and other things
What the hell are slugs? Think about it, what other slug-like things (besides snails) do you commonly encounter? These funky little mollusks look like aliens, and despite seemingly no defenses or escape mechanisms, they're everywhere. Why don't you get back in the ocean with all your mollusk friends, huh?! Get outta here.
In all my garden research, I've heard a single repeated chorus: That slugs are the ultimate pests. Frankly, I've never thought much of them. Every once in a while, I'll see a trail of slime on my porch or door, and think "Oh, a slug was here." For some reason, I've always chalked slugs up as being a particularly British annoyance. Like, British gardens, being somehow colder or wetter than the U.S. must deal with the descending hordes of slugs. I don't know what I was thinking, I live in the Pacific Northwest.
This year I've been working on a new garden in my quest to grow 1000 lbs of food, and as soon as I planted my first set of cabbage starts, I came back a few days later to find all these starts pretty thoroughly devoured. In my tiny garden from before, I somehow didn't have this problem...
Not knowing what it was, I went leafing through my garden books, matching my found evidence to the telltale signs of certain pests. It had to be slugs. Ever since coming to this conclusion, I've been obsessed with the demise of the entire class of gastropods that make up the slug family.
Turns out there are a few tried and true methods for protecting your plants from slugs. I ain't about that pesticide life, so I'm trying to go with something more natural.
- Create a defensive barrier. Slugs apparently detest sawdust and diatomaceous earth, so you can ring susceptible plants with these materials. I have unlimited sawdust from my woodshop, so I'll be going with that in bulk, but we also picked up some diatomaceous earth, so I can experiment with the efficacy of both.
- Increase predator presence. Herein lies one of the most obnoxious things about slugs – they're apparently not very tasty. That said, ducks and toads devour them on masse, so I've been trying to get a toad house set-up in the garden.
- Go hunting. Perhaps the most effective method of all: Wait for a damp night, grab your flashlight, and go hunting.
So, I donned my headlamp and set-off. You would not believe how slugs get busy at night – in 40 minutes I eliminated 271 slugs... My cup of soapy water was almost entirely full of drowned slugs. I wasn't even trying particularly hard; just focusing on slugs that I could find in plain sight. I meticulously counted so that I can repeat this experiment in the coming weeks. If I find a substantially reduced number, I'll have a pretty good idea that this method is working. If there's a seemingly unlimited supply, I'll need to get creative.
On thugs
Shifting gears, in one of the greatest side stories of this year's very weird NBA season, John Belein, coach of the Cavs, reportedly said that his players were "no longer playing like a bunch of thugs." This had reportedly caused some angst among his players, who took offense to the word.
(Hint: The racial issue is easy to understand if you've got white grandparents. Ask your grandpa if he likes watching the NBA... 80% chance he'd never watch it because "it's just a bunch of thugs". By the by, one of the most thuggish players of all-time is Bill Laimbeer, a big ol' white dude, who was once quoted as saying "I'm the only player in the NBA who makes less money than his father." Thugs come in all shapes, sizes and colors, people.)
Back to the Cavs. Once this story broke, Balein backpedaled and said that he meant that they weren't playing like a bunch of slugs. I can't get over how great that reversal is. Instead of owning up to a relatively benign comment, and moving forward, he tried to spin it as if he was referring to his team as a bunch of mollusks. He either meant to say something mildly offensive, or just super cheesy. Those logical cartwheels are phenomenally acrobatic.
Anyways, it's pretty clear that whoever broke that story was just trying to get the guy fired. I mean, you're really going to make a stink about "thugs"? And by secretly leaking it to the media?! I mean, just ask the guy to use a different word next time, and use it as a moment to understand each other better, sheesh!
One part of being principled is sticking to those principles regardless of your own bias. Sometimes that means holding your friends accountable for their actions, and giving your opponents a pass. The Daily Show recently had a video where they mashed up all of the criticisms Obama got from conservative media when he posed with a selfie stick. They called the behavior "undignified" and "unpresidential". Look who we've got in office now... where are those same criticisms?
To finish it off: Slugs, thugs, bugs, chugs, shrugs, Uggs... definitely the worst word ending in the English language.
May your slug-hunting be bountiful in all its varieties.