Eating My Garden: Slug Fest

June 5, 2009

Slug Fest

As you may have expected from the previews, our tomatoes are standing tall. More than 5 ft. tall, actually. One of the red cherry varieties has already produced a tomato or two for tasting, and if the early returns are any indication of the crop to follow, we're in for a very good season.

But the basil plants are a problem, and I can't have a massive crop of tomatoes without a massive crop of basil to accompany it. That's akin to salsa without any jalapeno or sushi without any wasabi. Basil adds the accent. The difficulty lies in the fact that the humans at my house are not the only ones who enjoy a nice bite of basil leaf. My plants are so popular with the insect crowd, their leaves are being shredded before they can get properly established.

I was complaining to my neighbor, an avid gardener, about this conundrum, when she oft-handedly mentioned the beer trick. I'd heard of this remedy before but always discounted it as an old farmer's tale, a sort of urban gardener's myth not to be believed. The idea is to put saucers of beer around the plants at dusk in the hope that, on the way to dinner, the pests will slip into the pub for a quick beer bath and thus, succumb to a maltly demise, well before they can belly up to the day's main course. This approach just sounded so fanciful, it was hard to take seriously, a notion conceived by a gardening Andy Capp.

But these were desperate times. June was upon me, the tomatoes were ripening fast, and my basil was nowhere near ready. So I went to the market and purchased a six-pack of inexpensive beer. Last night, before the sun finally set, I strategically placed a couple of saucers of the amber fluid around the basil plants, and hoped for the best.

This morning, like any eager trapper, I went out before 7 a.m. to check the results. Dead body count: Nine slugs afloat in the two little pools of beer I had set out. This plan was a smashing success. I had achieved slugs corpses without any need for me to do the actual killing. Tonight, I plan to repeat the process. Perhaps some slug cousins will come looking for their missing relations, or maybe they'll just be hankering for a dinner of basil salad. And like the nine souls who predeceased them, let's hope these slugs also get waylaid by the allure of a before-dinner drink.

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Preface

Following a diagnosis of breast cancer in October 2007, I launched a blog that chronicled the ups and downs of illness and treatment. The readers of that blog (http://merelyadetour.blogspot.com/) accompanied me as I conducted medical research, dealt with hair loss, talked to doctors, and generally slogged through the day-to-day experience of being a breast cancer patient. Hopefully, the readers of the first blog found it to be informative, occasionally smile-inducing, and worthy of their attention. Once my medical sidetrip wound down and I regained my strength, I imagined I might have a new perspective, but did I? Still unsure where my detour had left me, I returned to the familiar, like my job as a legal investigator, but I also tried some new approaches, like supplementing my interest in cooking with growing as much organic produce in our yard as possible. Admittedly, this blog has sputtered at times, but it still inches forward, just like the tiny green worms who are eating my garden, one basil leaf at a time.

Tomatillo Salsa

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. of tomatillos, husked and washed
2 jalapeno chilies, stemmed and seeded
1/4 cup cold water
1/4 medium onion
handful of cilantro
1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:
Roughly chop the tomatillos and the jalapenos and place in a blender or food processor with the water. Pulse a few times until the mixture is chunky. Add the onion, cilantro and the salt and puree until no more large chunks remain.

This salsa stands up on its own to chips or tacos, or you can add some avocado and lime juice to this mix to achieve a smoother, tangy salsa. The base recipe is from Mesa Mexicana by Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger.

Eating My Garden