Night on the beer
Dick Warner adjusts a delicate balance
I've just been out to the vegetable garden to pull some radishes. They were excellent radishes - round and red, plump and crisp. On dry days I had used a sprinkler in the evenings to prevent them bolting. But they were not perfect radishes because most of them had a couple of little dents about the size of the head of a match where the white flesh showed through the red skin. I knew what this was - it was mollusc damage - either slugs or snails had been nibbling my radishes.
The same old problem. All my life I've been an organic gardener and I particularly enjoy growing vegetables. I also do my best to encourage wildlife on my plot of land, all kinds of wildlife from the birds and the mammals down to the humblest creepy-crawly. For my pains, I end up with imperfect radishes.
In the past I have occasionally used slug pellets. There's no reason why I shouldn't. I don't sell my produce and I'm not registered as an organic grower so I can make up my own rules. But I've always felt bad about it because I've read the scientific studies and I know the damage the active ingredients do to hedgehogs and song thrushes. It has been suggested that the recent decline in song thrush numbers in Britain and Ireland is directly linked to the use of slug pellets.
The organic gardening gurus are full of suggestions on how to cope with this problem. One of the commonest is to plant slug traps in your garden. You sink shallow bowls or the skins of halved grapefruit in the ground and fill them with beer. Slugs are apparently inveterate alcoholics and will dive into the beer and drown.
It has been suggested that the recent decline in song thrush numbers in Britain and Ireland is directly linked to the use of slug pellets
That's the theory. In practice I have found a number of other things happen. Either it rains heavily and dilutes the beer, or the sun shines and it all evaporates. If the weather is just right the dog comes along and drinks it when you're not looking. Most dogs love beer.
But the other day I came home with a shop-bought plastic slug trap. It's cleverly designed because it has a lid to keep out rain, sun and dogs with a gap between the lid and the bowl just large enough for the average slug to crawl through. Big snails would probably get jammed, but I can live with that. I've set the trap beside the radishes and we'll see what happens. If it doesn't work it's not the end of the world because the radishes tasted fine despite their little blemishes.
The next task will be to patrol the brassicas looking for caterpillars. The same gurus suggest you pick these off by hand. This works if you're dealing with the caterpillars of the large white butterfly and there aren't too many of them. But it's a different story with the caterpillars of the small white and the cabbage moth. These burrow down into the leaves of a cabbage or cauliflower where they can't be seen and can't be picked.
If you cover your brassicas with a plastic net with a very small mesh or fleece, you can keep the butterflies out and prevent the problem occurring in the first place. But I've found this to be an awkward solution, particularly when you're trying to harvest the stuff and particularly if you have some of the taller varieties of sprouts or broccoli.
Most years I have to use an organic spray. These are very good on soft-skinned creatures like caterpillars and they break down into harmless organic chemicals within hours of being applied. Most garden centres stock these organic sprays nowadays and I find the ones containing pyrethrum, which is extracted from a kind of African daisy, are particularly effective
You can also make your own natural sprays. I prefer the one made with an infusion of elder leaves, which contain hydrocyanic acid, but this preference is partly due to the fact that there's a lot of elder growing round here. I've seen a recipe using rhubarb leaves but I haven't tried it because I don't grow rhubarb. The only disadvantage of these home made sprays is that they don't keep, you have to use them immediately you make them. This is the down-side of a poison that breaks down immediately and causes no permanent environmental damage.
So, year on year, the slow dance continues. Sometimes nature comes out on top, sometimes I get the upper hand. But most of the time we manage to compromise and achieve a balance of power that leaves all sides reasonably contented.