The Bane of My Existence

BAM!!! Don't you wish you could unsee that?

I photographed these enthusiastic exhibitionists in my garden last summer. They're single-minded. And hermaphroditic. How cool is that? They start out as boys and, after they understand it's clearly better to be a girl, they switch. Not sure which is the enlightened one. Sometime between the cigarettes and the picking of 50 awesome and original names for their new offspring they became even more slimy. And salty.

I am blessed to garden in Cascadia. The great and beautiful Pacific Northwest. Because the weather is so wet and mild, many of the crops I grow here are year-'round. I get lettuce, chard, spinach, carrots, and many others all year.

I am also cursed to garden in Cascadia. The damp and cool Pacific Northwest. Because the weather is so wet and mild, it is home to the bane of my existence who live to nibble gobble each other AND my lovely year-'round veggies.

Have you ever learned something new and said to yourself, "Self, how did you get to be this age and not know THAT"? Well, it happened to me. I recently learned, and I believe it was from Backwoods Home Magazine, that cedar boards are my new best friends. Laid in the garden overnight and flipped over in the morning, cedar boards provide a smorgasbord (haha, get it?) of slugs for the chickens. Huh. Who'd've thunk it?