Gardening, Alaska style

I have been a slave to my garden here lately. Don't get me wrong - I love gardening. But we have had ZERO rain in at least a couple of weeks. I am on watering duty, it seems, 24/7. Tonight I went outside and saw that something was making serious holes in my cabbage. On closer inspection, it was my nemesis from last summer - the slug.

I didn't think I'd have that much trouble with them this year because it has been so dry, but there they were, eating my cabbage. And so, I trotted into my closet, pulled out that nasty case of beer I purchased last year and saved, and popped a top and started making beer traps for the slubs.

What I did was took a plastic cup, cut it so it was about 2 inches tall, then dug a hole and placed it in the hole so that the rim of the cup was level with the ground. Fill with beer, and presto- you have beer traps. Evidently, slugs are slimy little drunks and absolutely love beer. They squirm up to the cup, go for a big gulp, fall in and drown. That's the theory, anyway. It remains to be seen whether or not it works. My grandma used to use something in Ohio she called 7 dust. I hate the thought of using pesticides, so we'll give this a whirl. Here are a couple of pics of my garden from two weeks ago. I will take some more and you will be able to see how fast everything has grown.