Swiss chard resisting the slugs

I've read that slugs and snails are very bad this year due to the winter being mild and the summer not being particularly dry.

I have a clump of self sown swiss chard and there has been very little slug damage. I have found it easy this year to find leaves with no bits eaten at all.

There are plenty of slugs and snails elsewhere in the garden though!

3 June - May at last!

Yesterday I put out my runner beans and tomatoes into the garden - jobs I normally do in May.

Usually the love-in-the-mist grows like a weed in my garden, this year I had very few, and most of those were where the beans were to go, so up they came! Also very few swiss chard came up, and only one ruby chard which was on the edge of the runner bean bed. I tore off some leaves so they didn't provide a route for snails to reach the beans and hope, by keeping an eye on it, that I can keep it to goes to seed.

I haven't been able to use the metal and bean wigwams I bought as the ground was too dry. Next year I will have to try in late winter when hopefully the ground will be soft enough for me to press the centre stakes into the earth.

I used the green plastic slug collars round each of the beans. It is always a worry that I have trapped a snail, or more likely a slug inside the collar with the bean. This morning only two bean plants had nibbled leaves. One had the culprit - a snail - crawling on the slug collar!

I put some tomatillo seedlings into the seed pots the beans had come out of. And next weekend I will put out the climbing french beans.

This morning I had extra watering to do, but am looking forward to all the vegetables in a few months time!

The Thrifty Forager

I have just treated myself to this book by Alys Fowler.

Several of the plants mentioned grow in my garden. I'll ignore the spinach type ones. I have swiss chard free seeding in the garden, so I have no need of anything else spinach-like.

There is featured in the book the stag's Horn sumach/velvet sumach, which looks like the tree I pass on the way to the bus stop. I'll have to check it is not the varnish tree (same family) which is toxic.

The red fruits of the stag's horn sumach are soaked in water for several hours with a little honey or sugar to make a lemon-like drink.

It seems a long time to wait before I can start putting this book to use.