Win, Lose, or Get Creative

Sometimes gardening, like politics, is the art of compromise.

Our cabbages have been under constant attack from every pest known to woman throughout the spring and summer growing season. Cabbage worms, harlequin bugs, and slugs have been the most destructive, with rolypoly bugs sometimes joining the fray.

Now that the bugs and slugs have had all summer to multiply and establish themselves, its been getting downright dangerous to be a brassica in our cabbage patch.

We have harvested some nice big heavy cabbages (as you can see in my last post) but the nail-biting question of whether the pests or the gardeners would triumph finally got to be too anxiety-provoking for me and I looked for a "third way." After managing for months to fend off armies of small creatures who like cabbage as much as I do, I finally gave up and decided not to wait until all of the cabbages are "normal" cabbage-sized. I've never been too interested in normalcy anyhow.

So I harvested a bunch of tiny cabbages yesterday. One of the smallest is pictured at the top of this post.

Baby cabbages make perfectly fine cole slaw and kraut, I've discovered. They are nice and tender, and just darn cute.

Here's an approximation of the slaw recipe that I use:

Classic Cole Slaw

Ingredients

• A bunch of cabbage of any size (about 4 cups chopped)
• 4 or 5 good-sized carrots
• 2-4 Tbs. of raw apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbs. of honey
• Mayonnaise to taste (I use about a cup per four cups of chopped cabbage)
• 1 tsp. high-quality salt
• Lots of freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Finely chop cabbage and carrots. I use a food processor for this, but you can do it by hand.
2. Mix everything together in a big bowl.
3. Chill in the fridge, allowing the flavors to meld for at least 30 minutes before serving.
4. Enjoy!

Cole Slaw on Foodista:

War on Slugs: Slugs Winning*

As I've mentioned before, it was the wettest May on record last month with more than 9 inches of rain.  We have inadvertently discovered the following tried and true garden formula.

Recipe for an Ultra-Slugerific-Slugtastic Slugfest:

Ingredients:

• 9 inches of rain
  
• Thick mulch
  
• A large serving of tasty young edible plants 
  

Sprinkle garden with plants. Apply mulch generously. Gradually add rain and let sit. Viola!

~~~~~   

Thanks to our perfect execution of this recipe, we have found ourselves fighting a war on slugs that seems almost as futile as the war on drugs.  My usual slug-fighting weapon, Sluggo, an organic slug-killing product, has proved insufficient.   

So this evening we've pulled back our beloved mulch (to which I am deeply philosophically attached and the absence of which pains me as I watch the sun dry and leach the soil), applied a boatload of Sluggo, and prepared to host a massive Slug Beerfest tonight.  Christopher sacrificed his last three Pabst Blue Ribbons to create a buffet of beer saucers for the slugs.  And now we wait.

Anyone who thinks growing vegetables, even organically, doesn't involve killing things should come visit our garden this month.  Let the garden pest hunting season officially begin.

Hugs not Slugs!

*An homage to one of my favorite The Onion news stories of all time: Drugs Win Drug War