We love fresh peas.
Unfortunately, so do slugs, so much so that they have routinely destroyed every batch of early peas I set out. Words acceptable in a family newspaper cannot express my outrage at this annual demonstration of gastropodal gluttony, but hope springs eternal and every year I try, try again. The problem seems to be our too temperate rainforest climate, providing damp soil that slugs thrive in. Later in the year the soil dries out, but until the drought conditions for the slimy invaders are perfect and despite my best efforts they continue to chow down.
Like my Scots forebears, however, I am persistent, and this year I may have discovered a solution. I grew my first pea seedlings about three weeks longer than usual indoors to avoid the wet spring slug and sow bug season and repotted them as they outgrew the smaller containers. I also sprayed the prospective pea bed with Jerry Baker’s “Bug and Thug” Spray a week before setting them out while the weather cooperated, and when I transplanted them I also sprayed the plants. I found the recipe for the spray in Baker’s book, Backyard Problem Solver, and have included it at the end of the article.
When I planted the first batch of seedlings I also sowed a second directly outside in a bed that had also been sprayed. About a week after I planted them it started raining again which may have encouraged the slimy little gourmands, so I’m making another batch now that the rain has stopped to spray the peas again. A week later it will be time to sprinkle compost tea augmented with fish fertilizer to foster leaf growth. Once they start flowering in earnest I’ll switch to seaweed-enriched compost tea to encourage pod development, and three weeks later we should be eating our first peas.
Jerry Baker’s recipe for his Bug and Thug Spray:
3 T. baking soda
2 T. Murphy’s Oil Soap
2 T. vegetable oil
2 T. vinegar
2 gal. warm water
Mix the ingredients together in a handheld sprayer and mist-spray your plants until they are dripping wet. Apply in early spring, just when bugs and thugs are waking up. I used a watering can to spray the soil first, and then again on the transplanted seedlings.
Last year when the first batch of peas were noshed on in the beginning they kept growing but never produced decent sized pods to make it worth the effort. Second and subsequent batches that didn’t suffer predation because it was hotter and dryer grew great pea pods. If this spray works I’m hoping that the early peas this year will produce as well. If it doesn’t, perhaps science will develop a genetically modified slug that prefers Scotch broom and morning glory.
Until then, here’s hoping.
Please contact mary_lowther@yahoo.ca with questions and suggestions since I need all the help I can get.
