Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Day Seven

Once more, with feeling! Here are the pictures I had hoped to post yesterday!

My mom has a bed of lilies in front of her house and they have grown almost four feet tall this year. The last pictures shows them in all their glory. I also took several snaps of the flowers--today I share the white ones. More to come in the following days.




Aren't they spectacular?

It's been rainy, then sunny here today. It looks like I have won the war on the slugs (knock on wood). There must have been absolutely hundreds of slugs--at least three varieties--on my flowers and porches this year. Cedar mulch did nothing--beer didn't work--I was hesitant to go the chemical route with all the other animals around. So I did the low-tech thing--salt. Yes, some people like a little slug with their salt--I carried a large shaker box of salt with me and sprinkled a bit on every slug I encountered. It is disgusting--they literally turn to slime. But this was war--they destroyed my beautiful peach iris this year--took giant hunks out of all the blossoms and leaves. Turns out salt is not good for grass--it died in places--but brown grass is infinitely better than hundreds of slugs. Who knew that plain old table salt could become a weapon of mass destruction?!?!

This early post will surprise many of you--but I have a class tonight and didn't want to take a chance of missing the midnight deadline. I'm sure many of you are still in awe that I've posted eight days in a row--yes, I am counting the last day of June when I made my intentions known!
Enjoy whatever you are doing today--life is too short to be crabby about the small stuff.
Hugs,
Sharon

3 comments:

  1. Boy I am glad I am not a "slug" but then I like "Salty" foods, like potato chips and crackers,soooo??? I have heard of coffee grounds in your beds--slugs won't crawl over them and coffee grounds are very good for your plants, so you can do "2" things at once--as you found out the salt kills the slugs, but also other things--I used to pick all the slugs off and drop them into the container of salt???? The lily pictures are sooo pretty, thanks, hope you are having a great class--just, Di

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  2. Asiatic lillies are amoung my favorites. Just beautiful!! I have heard the beer in pie tins work to remove them, or at leat intoxicate them to kingdom come..LOL. Maybe the key is a little for them, a little for you...eventually you don't see any slugs... That, or maybe go for a different brand... maybe a pale ale is more then speed???

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  3. "Turn to slime"? Cool! Not to get too technical but I just bought 6# of diatomaceous earth on eBay. I have not applied yet but will be experimenting the rest of the season. I did learn one thing if anyone would try this. Make sure it's food grade. Anyway, your reference to your Americana Flag class caught my eye. Will you be showing some pictures? I tried to find then on your website, but didn't see any.

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