HOME & GARDEN
DIGGING DEEP
Living with slugs and snails
H
Pic: Hans Splinter - flickr
R
50
Pic: Marie Baeten - flickr
Top Tip...
Lavender is actually a herb with many known health benefits
How does your garden grow?
ecently, I have been volunteering with The Conservation Volunteers organisation, who work with the local council to improve some of the green The RHS are taking a different spaces in Fenny Stratford. line towards garden gastropods Their aim is to bring people together to create, improve and care for green spaces that form a And you should never reach for the salt vital part of any healthy, happy community. pot, either. It’s important to remember that One of our projects is to reclaim the Pinewood slugs just do what slugs do. Introducing salt Community Allotment as a productive space. causes osmosis and sucks water from their In just seven months the site has been bodies until they die of dehydration. You transformed from an overgrown jungle of wouldn’t pour salt into an open wound, or rub it into your eye because you know that it bramble and detritus, to a fully operational is excruciatingly painful. So please don’t do it community green place. to creatures that are all the more fragile. We have built raised beds, including one Besides, no matter how you try, you’ll never that can be used by people with eradicate them completely, but there mobility problems, filled them are humane, natural ways to help with topsoil and are now keep your plant life happy; coffee planting them up with fruit grounds, recycled wool pellets, and vegetables. garlic and copper tape all annoy If you would like to them, and could keep your grow food, but lack the marigolds looking marvellous experience or space and your pumpkins perky. You at home, why not join get the idea. our happy band of A ‘sacrificial bed’, comprising volunteers who share plants that snails and slugs can knowledge and the feast on, thus leaving your other :T physical work involved? garden growers alone, is a smart he Co Bletchley and Fenny way to garden harmony. nse s rvatio n Volunteer Stratford Green Gym sessions run on Thursday mornings. For further information call Jen on 07740 899633 or email Jennifer.zwetsloot@tcv.org.uk No experience is required to join us and you will be provided with tools and any basic training needed on the day. It’s a familiar sight in our herb gardens Meanwhile, of course, I still make time to and borders, and English Lavender is help organise Bletchley Garden Club! Our July currently in mid-bloom with its many pretty meeting is on the evening of Tuesday 12th petite and very fragrant flowers. when we will be visiting the Secret Garden in The herb is also used to help with a Wolverton. We welcome new members. number of ailments and conditions; most Please email info@bletchleygardenclub.org famously as an aid to sleep. If you are for more information. struggling with insomnia, lavender may be your new best friend. Jan Taylor If it’s growing in your garden, now is a great time to prune the flowers – cut > Bletchley Garden Club (BGC) meet each the stems by taking around a third of its month. New members welcome. For details growth, but no more. Bunch them together visit bletchleygardenclub.org and hang upside down for use later on. c Pi
ere’s a controversial thing. If they aren’t interfering with your best garden displays, would you consider letting gastropods live free in your garden? Slugs and snails have long been treated with contempt by green-fingered types, but things are changing; The Royal Horticultural Society has had a rethink regarding slugs and snails, and they are no longer being classed as pests. Instead they will be promoted as a positive part of a garden’s ecosystem, and rightly so; those great big slugs that take our attention as they slowly slide around our outside spaces actually munch their way through dead and decaying plant material and other debris. You might want to think of them as important mini compost machines! Aside from clearing the old plants, they are predated on by other garden residents, who are themselves struggling to survive. Hedgehog numbers are declining, so too are many of our garden bird species. And both are partial to slugs and snails. Frogs and toads gobble them up too. Slugs have their place in our outside spaces, and so too do snails. It’s also a misconception to think that all snails and slugs attack your green stuff, but of course there are a proportion that do, and if your cabbages have been catastrophically munched, or your blooms devoured, it can be devastating - especially after so much hard work has gone into growing them. A ban on slug pellets was brought in earlier this year – they often contain metaldehyde, which doesn’t just stop the slug dead, it is also harmful to birds, hedgehogs and even dogs.
July 2022 | MK Pulse Magazine | 32,000 Copies delivered every month door to door across Milton Keynes
