Community Garden Blog 13-Jun
Community Garden: A creative Experiment
by Augene Nanning, 13-Jun-25
Growing vegetables, fruit and flowers is a creative experiment for me, and always a learning curve.
Take the slug and snail potion: one teaspoon sugar and plain flour, and a generous teaspoon of yeast, to one cup of water. Mix and pour into container around the garden.
I have used this potion for years on my allotment with good success. I’ve used it in the Community Garden, and caught some snails and slugs. But more commonly, the containers appear grass, no longer where it has been carefully placed in a plant bed – or disappear altogether! Frequently, in place of the slug potion container in the veg bed, there is a deeper, larger hole than the container ever required!
Foxes! We guessed that foxes were enjoying the fermented drink. It wasn’t beer but it was enticing enough to encourage them to destroy areas of the beds!
So we stopped using the slug & snail potion. Fortunately, so far we haven’t had an infiltration of these hungry pests. There have been nibbles that might indicate their presence, but the style of the bites look more like bird pecking. But the lettuce is growing, a great favourite for slugs and snails – so we might experience an attack yet!
I’ve been told garlic crushed and added to water, or likewise with hot chillis would work. I’ve yet to try this but if I do, I’ll let you know how it successful it is.
I always welcome suggestions and recipes with natural ingredients.
Meanwhile, beans, peas, lettuce and more grow inspite of what we do in the community garden! As the weather warms, and rain falls, so do the weeds!
Your support and assistance is always welcome! Please drop by Thursday mornings,10am – 12 noon, to offer a helping hand. You are always welcome!
If you have questions, comments or natural ingredient potions or other suggestions for a healthy garden, please send them to communitygarden@mhmc.org.uk
Last week, Saman joined Janet and I. You’ll know him for the bird houses he’s built that are on the trees, and for the work he did to clean up the swing chair that is now in the community garden. He’s a busy worker! He planted lettuce and herb seeds, watered, weeded and sorted out the raspberry bed. The foxes have had a fun time digging and creating big holes in the soil. Saman lugged the bags of soil and filled in the holes. Some bushes didn’t survive but we’ll replace those. Meanwhile, Janet and I continue with the many jobs a garden demands.
If you’ve visited the garden lately, you’ll see some plants are doing well! The potatoes, onions and garlic are growing in jumps and bounds it appears, and some beans (broad beans and dwarf beans) and peas, too! There may still be some courgettes – as I write this, I haven’t been to the garden for a week – but the plants weren’t watered as usual so some may have died. Usually the garden is watered Thursday, Sunday and Tuesday. But Paul, who waters on Tuesdays, and I weren’t available. If you have any interest in helping in any way in the community garden, do get in touch.
