This year really had me feeling the effects of the climate crisis. El Nino gave us a preview of the years to come. Slugs have been the winners with a year perfectly to their liking: wet and overcast. On another rainy day, I check on the garden to make sure the slugs did not eat all of my brassica plants.

Okay, I just emptied the slug traps, most of them had slug in them, and no new insects that I could see, but there are so many slugs everywhere.

I collected this entire bucket full of slugs and brought it to where they come from, which is the nearby field. Well, I brought them to a place near there, so they won’t be back tomorrow in my garden.

So nothing that’s in my garden seems to like to eat them. I’d like more things to eat slugs, please. More leopard slugs. Let’s bring more leopard slugs in so they can eat all the eggs.

Slug duty in the morning meant less time in the kitchen before work/study. I still made more syrup.

The first red velvet is showing the tiniest bit of flower or velvet queen, whatever it’s called, the red ones. So, soon I’ll have red sunflowers, which is really great because some of the yellow ones are definitely past their prime and they’re starting to go to seed. So, we’re going to have to see what we do with that.

This year really had me feeling the effects of the climate crisis. El Nino gave us a preview of the years to come. Slugs have been the winners with a year perfectly to their liking: wet and overcast.

It’s a very, very windy day.

I’m just here to see if the slugs are eating all of my brassicas and then we’re going to go back because it’s been raining on and off. And it was raining when we got to the car. It’s not raining right now.

It’s probably going to start raining again in a few seconds.
So we’re just here to quickly check on everything and wish me luck that the slugs didn’t eat all my brassica. They definitely did try. But the traps were smelling better.

It’s looking good. It’s actually looking good. And also it’s raining again. I told you. But yeah, it’s looking good. There is one slug that I can see, nothing in the traps, which is–Pepper! Move. Move. Guess where Pepper’s sitting. Good boy. Yeah. And where was I? It’s looking good.

Most of the brassica are still here. And I think all the damage was from before. So I don’t think they’ve been here this night. So yeah, looking good, keeping my fingers crossed that it’s going to stay that way. But so far so good.

I’m going to remove that one slug that is here and check on the rest of the garden real quick, open up the greenhouse because it is steaming in there. But I only want to air it out real quick because it is raining. It is very wet. And I’m not sure the outside air is that much better right now, but it’s a steamhouse.

I was just getting a little bucket to harvest the tomatoes when I saw that there are also ripe tomatoes in the greenhouse.

So I’m going to harvest those first. I didn’t even bring a camera. I’m just here to quickly make sure the slugs aren’t eating the brassica. But now I’m harvesting tomatoes. I’m happy.

OK, let’s go harvest those other ones. Hi, Pepper. Look, he’s here. Hi, Pepper. Hi. Yes, those are tomatoes. Do you want one? Let’s go find you one.

It’s really starting to rain. I don’t even know if you can hear me, but yeah, I’m not done checking everything. Stop rain. OK.

Weeding is a constant part of any task. If I see dandelions or horsetail where they don’t belong, I pull them. Weeds are nature’s way to heal the soil. I leave a lot of them in but they can’t take over everywhere. My tomatoes have had a hard enough time without competing with dandelions for nutrients.

In the rain, I checked on the peppers to make sure they weren’t getting too wet.

While weeding, I found another Spanish slug–a species probably not originally from Spain. I’d already lost two peppers to slug damage, so I moved the slimy thing to the forest plot.

“You’re not getting that.”

Yes, I know. If I just throw those slugs to the forest plot, they might come back. It’s okay.

The ones that go in the slug traps are dead for the ones I’m just collecting. I’m not going to kill them. I’m just going to throw them in the forest plot. I hope they find food there and don’t come back, but if they do, either they make it into the slug trap or they go for another round.

The yellow plum tomatoes had plenty of fruit–earning themselves a spot in next year’s garden.

And now we even get a hint of sunshine. It’s a weird day. I guess we’re back in April or is this fall now? I don’t know. It’s definitely not summer.

I have no idea what to expect from these radishes. But I’m going to keep the experiment going, keep them watered, keep them happy.

Maybe we just have a very simple method of growing radishes or maybe we’ll have the most weirdly shaped radishes or none at all if they die like the chart did that was back there.

The beets over here aren’t looking too great either. I think they aren’t getting enough sunshine because it’s a very, very dark and gloomy year. So they are behind the sunflowers and get even less. So I think it might just have been too shaded of a spot for this particular year.

Who’s loving life is the beans over here. I mean, just look at her. It’s so beautiful. There are beans everywhere.

We’ve seen slugs in this part of the garden but they are definitely more prolific at the other end. I think the overgrown forest plot offers a buffer from this side. Plenty of predators there–and plenty of food. I will grow a low “hedge” of yummie green around the entire plot next year to see if that helps.

Some of the tomato still have last traces of blight. I remove them when I see them. No big deal.

I don’t think the green corn is going to work out, but they are beautiful.

I love how they’re tasseling, but there’s just two of them and they’re not right next to each other. There’s this little gap between them. I have pushed them towards each other and just wobbled them a bit in the hopes that that’ll help. There’s also a lot of wind, but I don’t think they’re going to make nice cobs.

I hope we get a few so that I can grow them again next year without buying seed. But even if that doesn’t happen, it’s OK. There were only two of them. So yeah.

And the black corn isn’t tasseling yet, so there’s also no hybridization happening because they’re apparently not on the same schedule. And that’s fine with me.

It sure did look beautiful in the sun when I returned to start yet another new bed that afternoon. But that’ll be our story for the next episode. So long, and thanks for being here.