Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Fire Site Design article

I wrote an article for the permaculturewest enews recently about how to improve the safety of a home on a rural site by thoughtful placement of where to place the home and infrastructure so it is less prone to fire incursion.
Here is the link to it.. Property fire safety design

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Slug and snail control- the easy hands-on method.

The designated slug collecting spoon.

Snails and slugs can easily build up in winter where there is lot of vegetation, mulch and manures lying around. They congregate beneath pots and pavers or rock edges. When the first rains come suddenly the snails are out, marauding and chomping the little seedlings we waited so long to plant after the heat of summer.

Lots of different remedies are suggested by organic gardeners and I have tried many but really, the best way to get rid of them is to collect them. I don't squash them. I scoop them up and drop them into a small container of water with a few drops of washing detergent in it. This breaks the surface tension and the snail or slug drops straight to the bottom. I have a special, easily identified teaspoon that is used to scoop slugs up, too. Oh and a headlamp is handy, too so you can collect the slimy little beasts with two hands.

A few nights of obsessive snail collecting can make a huge difference to the numbers of hungry mouths out there, including the people who get to eat the vegies that the snails would have eaten!