Snails and vegan guilt

Yesterday before my trip out to Saffron Walden I put my climbing french beans out. Out of 10 beans planted only 4 had grown (I think I over-watered).

Yesterday evening after it was dark I went out to check for snails. As it had been raining I found lots, including one eating a leaf of one of the runner beans.

This morning out checking again I found two tiny snails crawling round the rim of a slug collar, the bit that is supposed to be a barrier, but they are so small it didn't work.

As a vegan I always feel guilty about killing snails and slugs. They are just trying to live their lives as they are intended to. In my front garden I leave them alone and put in only plants I think that can survive slugs and snails (and don't need watering). But I grow vegetables, and even now salad vegetables are impossible to grow.

When I had the allotment there were less slugs and snails and I used to put them into my sieve and take them off site into some waste ground. It would be a long way to go to find my nearest waste ground now and not practical when in damp weather in summer I am checking twice a day.

I cut them in half, which is a quick death for them and harms no birds. But I still feel guilty. I did hear about laying down bran which, when I first read about sounded if it killed them, which sounds a horrid death. However, something I read recently made it sound as if it filled them up.......

Vegan vegetable grower on Gardeners World

I haven't watched Gardeners World for years, but Friday night a friend rang me to say that there was a vegan vegetable grower featured. So yesterday I watched it on i-player.

The section on the vegan's vegetable growing was very interesting. Monty Don was definitely impressed!

He does use manure (which makes him a vegan by diet rather than a someone who practises vegan gardening. However, the manure was only mentioned in passing. Instead was featured how he used old path mulch (I didn't take it what it was) which is sieved 3 times and each sieving used for a different purpose. and how he fertilised his tomatoes EVERY day.

He uses nettles, comfrey and potash. I don't have nettles except the occasional small plant. I used to do liquid comfrey fertiliser but then the comfrey stated getting rust so have to pick the leaves when they are small, so only small quantities now. I do have plenty of potash from the wood burning stove. Each week over the winter I put it on to the bed that is going to have tomatoes next season. This winter I am going to put it into a thick plastic bag and then make liquid potash fertiliser when the tomatoes start fruiting. I will also get some comfrey pellets from the organic gardening catalogue.

The organic gardening catalogue has already arrived; it is usually worryingly late! I have had my first go through, ticking what I would like. I will now have to go through again, reducing the order to what I have space for and can afford.

Nice bike ride this morning, to Victoria Park in Hackney along the towpaths. First time in 2 months because the towpath was blocked off during the Olympics. However successful the Olympics were, and I know lots of people really enjoyed them, I don't think they justified the cost or the amount of public space taken.