Finally a good use for it

Apparently, slugs do not like rhubarb any more than I do.

In fact, they seem to like it even less.

This seems odd, given that the undersides of the rhubarb leaves often shelter a goodly collection of snails, and snails are just slugs with shells, aren't they?

Ok, not quite.

So JP was putzing around online, as he often does, looking for ways to keep our garden 'bio' without sacrificing all the goodies we want to eat to the wildlife that also wants to eat them. We already gave in to anti-doryphore product, after all, and it's a slippery slope.

The site said you could take a kilo of rhubarb, let it macerate for 3 days in a couple gallons of water, and then spray the stuff on the garden each day for three days.

Alright, I can do that.

I cut up an unweighed bunch of rhubarb, and let it soak in a casserole. After 3 days at room temp, there were all sorts of fungal colonies floating around, and the rhubarb-associated bacteria were going strong. I wonder what part is it of the plant that slugs don't like. Perhaps I should boil it first and then let it sit the 3 days. But what if it's the culture of one of the fungi that's the active part, and being too clean would ruin everything...

Well, whatever. I bottled up some and sprayed the garden with it on Wednesday evening. I only saw one slug at the time (they tend to be out a lot more in the morning, as you might imagine), so I doused it. 

It did not seem to appreciate this.

At all.

Then last night I went around again, with an even funkier spray bottle of rhubarb soup. This time I did not see any slugs at all. As I said, however, the evening is not the best slug-observation period. So I will pay attention tomorrow morning whether or not there are the usual number of slugs on the salad and in the potatos.