Today’s Daily Prompt: Underground reminded me of a list of facts about slugs I included in the PNW GreenFriends Newsletter in August of 2015 (Page 20). Before compiling that list, I had no idea that 95% of slugs live underground. It is still near impossible for me to visualize that reality. Here is that list:
Did you know…
Only 5% of the slug population is above ground at any one time. The other 95% is underground digesting your seedlings, laying eggs, and feeding on roots and seed sprouts.
Slugs do play an important role in ecology by eating decomposing vegetation.
A slug lays 20-100 eggs several times a year.
Slug eggs can lay dormant in the soil for years and then hatch when conditions are right.
In favorable conditions a slug can live for up to 6 years.
Slugs used to live in the ocean, which is why they still need to keep moist
One individual field slug has the potential to produce about 90,000 grandchildren.
It’s been estimated that an acre of farmland may support over 250,000 slugs.
A cubic metre of garden will on average contain up to 200 slugs.
Slugs leave their own individual scent trail so they can find their way home.
A slug can stretch out to 20 times its normal length, enabling it to squeeze through the smallest of openings.
A slug has approximately 27,000 teeth – that’s more teeth than a shark.
The above facts are excerpts from: Fascinating Sluggy Facts. Go there to learn many more facts about slugs!
You can also find fascinating information about slugs at:
In the early to mid 90’s, I wrote a fun devotional song that my son told me sounded like a sea chantey. Years later, one line from that song would often come into my mind when I went on morning walks. At that point, though, the lyrics were different. They became “Good morning to you, good morning to you, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning to you.” I would sing the ditty to the plants and trees I encountered on my walk.
Thursday night, we had a big rain and wind storm in Seattle. On Friday morning I went outside to see how the trees fared. I found myself singing that song to each tree along my way.
First I visited the trees in my back yard:
Maple tree, good morning to you!
Holly tree, good morning to you!
Magnolia tree, good morning to you!
Juniper trees, good morning to you!
Blue Spruce, good morning to you!
Next, I walked down to the Greenbelt lot where we’ve been rescuing the trees from blackberry vines and ivy. I was eager to check out what had happened there during the storm. I could tell everything was fine, but it was still windy so I didn’t go as close to those trees as I would have normally. I didn’t want to take any chance that a dead branch would drop on my head.
Cherry trees, good morning to you!
Cedar trees, good morning to you!
Buddleia, good morning to you!
I look forward to seeing who you become now that you are freed from the blackberries. I also look forward to seeing if butterflies flock to your blooms.
Hawthorne tree, good morning to you!
I look forward to seeing what happens now that you have a chance to thrive.
And last but not least, beautiful Alder, good morning to you!
I thoroughly enjoyed my morning visit to each of these trees. Maybe this will become a daily ritual for me!
I wish each of you who read this post a very good morning, no matter what time of day it is in your part of the world.
I have been eagerly awaiting this week’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge. My favorite yellow photo is one I took two years ago near Amma’s Engineering College in Amritapuri, India. The bright yellow flowers were such a stunning contrast to all the greenery that surrounded it.
Here are some of the other “yellow” photos I’ve taken during the last two years. (Click on the gallery to enlarge the pictures.)
I have been reading a book by an urban farmer that I have been thoroughly enjoying, until last night. Just before I went to bed I read how she killed slugs in the most horrific way I can imagine. This morning I decided to re-read a post I wrote last year… and share it with you. (Be sure to also read the 2016 addendum.)
I imagine slugs are a problem for most gardeners, they sure have been for me. It is so discouraging to go to the garden in the morning and see only the stalks left on bean plants and other vegetable seedlings. In the “old” days I used to use powdered slug bait to get rid of them. Later on, I used beer to bait them.
I have become increasingly uncomfortable with killing the slugs. Early this year it seemed I had more than ever; especially in my two worm bins. Believe me, good compost and free food can raise some BIG slugs. During the early part of the summer, I relocated them to other parts of the yard and hoped they didn’t make their way back to my garden. Occasionally, when I found them in the worm bins, I just left them there.
Then one day I decided to see if there was any information on the internet about the relationship between worms and slugs. I was very dismayed to discover that slugs EAT worms! I even found videos that showed that happening.
Eating my vegetable starts was one thing, but getting plump from eating my worms was completely unacceptable. From then on I took the slugs to the bottom of the empty lot behind my house, about 250 feet away from my garden and my worm bins. That area is full of blackberries vines but I pulled up a lot of morning glory plants and made the slugs a soft bed of edibles.
Next year I will make a home for them that is more hospitable, but still far away from things I hold dear.
I will also experiment with other ways to protect my seedlings. For example, I like the gutter planters that my friend Saroja created this year. She didn’t put her seedlings into the garden until the plants were big enough to be of no interest to the slugs.
I am happy that I have found ways to protect my garden and worm bins without killing the slugs. I hope to be even more successful in that venture next year. If you have found peaceful ways to deal with the slugs in your garden, I would love to hear about them!
2016 Addendum: What I have found interesting this is year is that I have not needed to follow through on my 2015 plan. Other than losing two green bean seedlings at the beginning of the season, I have had NO problem with slugs in my garden or yard this year. There have been a few in my worm bins, and they were big and fat before they came into view, but I have just set them free outside of the worm bins. I don’t know where they go but I do know that all of the plants in my yard have been spared!
Just before hitting publish on this current post, I decided to read the article I mentioned above “Earthworms protect against slugs.” It reported about a study that showed that slugs damage 60% less leaves if earthworms are present. I know my yard has more earthworms than ever before so maybe that is the reason I’ve had no problem this year. I don’t know the “why”, but I definitely appreciate the reprieve and hope it continues.
After reading my Song Lyrics Sunday post for this week, a friend sent me an email telling me about Oscar Brown Jr.’s song The Tree and Me. It is beautiful, and I suggest you check it out too.
As I was listening to it, I remembered hearing Nimo Feat sing during the summer of 2015. I was so inspired by his music and even more inspired when I later read about his life and watched his videos. Here is a synopsis from his website:
From an Ivy League education to Wall street to fame and fortune as a MTV Rap star, at some point along Nimo’s journey he realized that we was walking a path of suffering and that the only path to light was through selfless service to others and his own internal purification. For the past 5 and half years Nimo has been serving and working with the underprivileged communities in the Gandhi Ashram in India.
Most recently Nimo has reconnected to his roots of music and is offering this gift of love, peace and oneness through his songs: an offering he calls “Empty Hands Music”.
Nimo chose the title ‘Empty Hands’, because of the profound wisdom we all can gain when we understand this deeper truth: that we arrive on this planet empty handed and we will all soon leave empty handed. So then, how and in what spirit do we want to spend the time in between?
The Empty Hands album can be downloaded for free here.
One of my favorite songs from that album is called Planting Seeds. Listening to it and watching the video still touches me so deeply. Moments ago, as I was finishing this post I watched it for the third time today. My tears are flowing.
PLANTING SEEDS
Written and performed by Nimesh “Nimo” Patel and Daniel Nahmod
Music Produced by Daniel Nahmod
Mixed by Brian Nicholls
Song inspired by original “Planting Seeds” song by Daniel Nahmod, 2006, from his ‘Water’ album
Lyrics
Intro:
I spent a long time runnin
I never knew then, what I know I know now,
That the fruits they always comin’
But you can’t go around just knockin’ them down
It takes a long time to showin’
We plant the seeds then, and we look at them now,
But the roots are always growin’
No matter if I’m there or never around…
Chorus:
Whatever grows will grow,
Whatever dies will die
Whatever works will work
Whatever flies will fly,
Whatever fails will fail|
What’s meant to soar will soar,
I am planting seeds nothing more
Verse 1:
Its like your whole life you’ve been training for this moment
And when the time comes you just disown it,
Meaning you just surrender don’t control it,
Not interested in the clay pots and moldin’
Or sitting next to the path, tryin’ to unfold it
Or waiting for the fruits to fall down toward ya’
You let it go and now your flowing feeling quite gorgeous
So you take steps away instead of towards it,
What a rush, feeling freedom with nothing to hold
We’ve been taught that what you touch will always turn to gold
But now we’re learning when we let it go, it overflows
With no credit to take cuz no credit is owned
A higher power working deeper when the seeds are sowed
And when the seeds are true, then they’re seeds of gold
But the real gold is joy, when life starts to flow
And when it does, you just smile, cuz now you know!
Bridge:
I spent a long time runnin
I never knew then, what I know I know now,
That the fruits they always comin’
But you can’t go around just knockin’ them down
It takes a long time to showin’
We plant the seeds then, and we look at them now,
But the roots are always growin’
No matter if I’m there or never around…
Helen’s direction for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday is to share lyrics from a song that has something to do with nature.
Since a major focus in my life right now is freeing trees from invasive plants such as blackberry vines and ivy, I decided to look for songs that talked about trees. The first one that drew me was Michael Mitchell’s song “Little Trees”. While I liked that one a lot, I decided to consider songs from a wide variety of sources. I listened to Bob McGrath (1922) singing a musical version of Joyce Kilmer’s poem- Trees, Metalicca’s- Blackened, Rush’s- The Trees, and Enya’s- Memory of Trees.
These songs varied from hopeful to apocalyptic. I decided to go with the first one I had listened to, one that was written for the purpose of teaching children about trees. Michael Mitchell wrote “Little Trees” for Sesame Street. It is part of his album Canada is for Kids: Volume 1.
I’d like to take a walk in the woods
Come with me, do you think you could
We’ll find a tree that we can climb
We’ll have fun all afternoon
Chorus:
Little trees need a chance to grow
It takes time and care
They’re a lot like us you know
So many kinds of different trees
They look like one big family
Big ones, short ones, baby ones too
I’ll name this one after you
It’ll be a long time before he
Is tall and strong like a grown up tree
For now he’s just a kid like us
Playing out in the woods
For the video, I picked Phantom Ember singing the song. I didn’t have much luck finding out information about Phantom Ember. From what I’ve read, I’m wondering if it is the ghost of Ember McClaine from a Nickelodeon animated television series Danny Phantom. Am I right?
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”-William Shakespeare
Living, Learning and Letting Go 
