Who’ll Stop the Rain?

As our unseasonably cold and wet weather continues, my anxiety over the newly germinating seeds has hit fever pitch.  Last Sunday I watched anxiously for any sign of the hail that was predicted and finally had to run out to cover the 6-paks of seedlings with empty flats when ¼” hail started pelting the gardens.  The seedlings were mostly the tomatoes, basils, peppers, okras, stevia and wonderberry.   On Monday morning, Baby Kitteh followed me out to the garden where I found that the tiny hail had made minute impressions where it had smacked into the cotyledons of the banana squash, which I hadn’t covered, but by afternoon the holes were filled back in.  The seedlings in the 6-paks did all right with the flats protecting them, even the ‘Cherokee Purple’ tomatoes, which are just starting to push their first true leaves.

Unfortunately, the constant cool, wet weather has brought on another problem: slugs and snails!  This morning I pulled two giant snails off the sides of the cucumber pots (they had already done some sampling) and after checking underneath a couple more pots I found a whole neighborhood of slugs cooling their antennae until nightfall.  So just before sundown today, I went out and looked under every pot and pulled off the slugs.  I’m not good at salting them or stepping on them so I put them on the bottom of a basket with the hopes that the birds will find them and make them a tasty meal.  Do birds even like slugs?