Slug War After the Big Dry

 Now, I don't want to tempt fate, but after the summer we've just had, I reckon I could have grown tomatoes on the moon. Weeks and weeks without a proper drop of rain, the water butts down to a sad brown puddle at the bottom, and me stood there of an morning with a watering can like I was rationing gold dust. Iris kept telling me I was talking to the courgettes. I probably was. Desperate times.

Then, as it always does in this country, the weather did a complete about-turn. One Tuesday it went from cracked earth and wilting French Beans to three solid days of proper, soaking Lincolnshire rain — the kind that gets right down into the soil and doesn't mess about. I stood at the allotment shed afterwards, cup of tea in hand, feeling like we'd been saved. The ground had gone from concrete to cake in about 48 hours. I even had a little dance about it, which Iris caught on her phone and threatened to put on her family group chat. Cheeky mare.

But here's the thing nobody tells you about a long drought followed by heavy rain — and I've had thirty-odd years up the allotment to learn this one the hard way — it's not just your plants that come back to life. It's every slug in the parish, all waking up at once, starving hungry, and heading straight for anything green and tender. Within four days, my whole second bed of dahlias looked like they'd been through a strimmer, and the lettuces just weren't there any more. Not damaged. Gone. Like Sara's biscuits when the grandkids come round.

The Night the lettuce Disappeared

Sam went up on the Thursday after work, still in his shirt from work, and just stood there staring at what was left of the dwarf lettuce. "Dad," he text with a pic, "I know you like a challenge, but that's not pruning, that's a massacre." He wasn't wrong. Whole row of little Gems reduced to little green stumps overnight, and the tell-tale silvery trails all over the soil like someone had been out with a glitter gun and terrible taste.

Old Gary, who's had the plot next to mine for going on twenty years now, leaned over the one of the water barrels with that look he gets when he's about to tell you something you don't want to hear. "Simon," he said, shaking his head slow, "you always get it worse than the rest of us after a drought breaks. Every slug for three gardens over comes looking for a drink and a feed, and you've gone and left the buffet open." Cheers, Gary. Very helpful. Very kind.

He wasn't lying though. That's the bit that catches people out — you spend all summer worrying about drought stress, and then the second the rain comes, you've got a whole new emergency to deal with, and this one moves at night and leaves slime trails as evidence, like the world's least subtle burglar.

The Family Slug Patrol

So we did what any sensible allotment family does — we declared war, and we did it together, which as most daft ideas in this family do, ended up being a proper laugh despite the seriousness of the situation. Iris, bless her, took to it with far too much enthusiasm for a seventeen-year-old. She got herself a head torch from somewhere, declared herself "Chief Slug Officer," and spent three evenings on the trot going out with a bucket doing the rounds after dark with Sam, when the little blighters are at their boldest. they'd tip thier haul over the fence into the rough grass by the hedge, well away from anyone's veg, and come back looking dead pleased with thier wellies covered in mud.

Fern, our other one, wandered up with them, took one look at Iris crouched over a lettuce with a torch clamped between her teeth, said "you two are actually mental," and went sat with her phone. Not everyone's cut out for it, and that's fair enough. More slugs for the rest of us to deal with, I suppose.

Sam took a more engineering approach, being that way inclined. He cut strips of old copper pipe I'd got lying about from a plumbing job years back and made little rings for round the precious dahlias, on account of slugs apparently not fancying the mild electric tingle they get off copper when they're damp. Whether that's science or an old wives' tale I genuinely don't know, but those dahlias are still standing and the unprotected ones near to them aren't, so I'm not arguing with results.

The Hard-Won Tip

Now, after more slug seasons than I care to count, here's the one thing I'd tell anyone who's just had their drought broken by a good soaking: don't wait until morning to go and assess the damage, because by then it's already done. Slugs do the vast majority of their feeding in the two or three hours after dark, especially in that warm, humid window right after rain when the air's still soft and everything's dripping. Get yourself out there with a torch that first evening, before they've properly settled in, and hand-pick as many as you can off the worst-hit plants — your beans, your lettuces, your dahlias, anything soft and new.

It sounds like hard graft, and it is a bit, but twenty minutes with a torch on the first night after rain will save you weeks of replanting. I also make a point now of clearing away any old boards, empty pots, or bits of matting I've left lying about the plot, because that's exactly where they hide up during the day, waiting for their moment. Tidy plot, fewer hiding places, simple as that. I learned that one the proper hard way, after losing an entire row of brassicas to a slug colony living quite happily under an old paving slab I'd forgotten about.

We also do the classic beer trap — a old margarine tub sunk into the soil with a splash of cheap beer in it, lid propped up on a stone so the rain doesn't dilute it and the hedgehogs don't fall in. Slugs are apparently proper lightweights and can't resist it. We put ours a little way off from the plants we're actually trying to protect, so we're luring them away rather than inviting them to a party right next to the lettuces. Empty and top up every couple of days, and try not to think too hard about what you're tipping out.

What we don't do is reach for the blue pellets. Never have. We get hedgehogs, frogs, and a fair few birds up our plot, and I'd rather lose a row of lettuce than poison the things that are quietly doing half my pest control for me anyway. If you must use anything shop-bought, the wildlife-friendly ferric phosphate ones are worth a look, but honestly, a torch, a bucket, and a bit of stubbornness has always done us just fine. The kids do all the night activities now days with me being at work. 

Bouncing Back

The good news, three weeks on, is that the allotment's coming good again. The beans that survived have done ok in the  rain and sunshine together, the dahlias Sam protected are putting on a proper show, and even the lettuces have had a second sowing that's coming through nicely, this time under a bit of horticultural fleece of an evening, which seems to be keeping the worst of them off.

It's funny, isn't it — you spend a whole summer begging for rain, and then when it finally comes, you're stood there at midnight with a torch, cursing every slug in lincolnshire. That's allotment life for you though. Never a dull moment, and always something to laugh about once it's over, even if it didn't feel very funny at the time, particularly to Iris, who is still finding slime trails on her wellies two days later.

Simon's Recipe Corner: Beer Bread

Seeing as we went through rather a lot of cheap beer setting slug traps this fortnight, and there's always a can or two left over that nobody fancies drinking, I thought I'd finish with one I make most Saturdays for the family anyway, with a beery twist this time. I'm no trained baker, mind — just a bloke who taught himself over a good few years of trial, error, and the occasional loaf that could've doubled as a doorstop.

Simon's Saturday Beer Bread

Ingredients:

• 450g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 330ml can of beer (a plain lager or ale, nothing too fancy)
• 50g butter, melted

Method:

1. Heat your oven to 190°C (170°C fan) and grease a loaf tin.
2. Mix the flour, salt, and sugar together in a big bowl.
3. Pour in the beer and stir until it's just combined — it'll be a rough, sticky sort of dough, and that's exactly how it should look, so don't panic and don't overmix it.
4. Tip it into the tin, smooth the top over roughly, and pour the melted butter over the surface.
5. Bake for about 45 minutes, until it's golden on top and sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.
6. Let it cool for ten minutes before turning out, though in our house it rarely lasts that long before someone's cutting into it.

No kneading, no proving, no waiting about — perfect for a Saturday when you've already lost half the morning to a slug patrol debrief with Iris. Good with a bit of butter and some of Sara's chutney, whichever mysterious batch she's finally allowed us to try.

Right, that's me for today. Off to check the beer traps and see who's had a heavy night. Happy gardening, and get that torch out the minute the rain stops — you'll thank me for it.