From Pest to Plate

Not one to shy away from sharing nasty pictures with you, here are my latest pest discoveries. The first are slugs. After growing cabbage and watching it sit in the garden and contemplating sending it straight to the compost, I needed another vegetable for the sautée we were fixing for lunch guests. I picked every last bean,two small squashes and several green onions, so I thought, “Why not the cabbage?” It was ready and basically flavorless. After I peeled back a couple leaves, I found these juicy guys. YUCK. I kept on peeling until there were no more slugs then washed it all very well.

Now doesn’t this look much better? I supposed one of the things about growing your own food is you have to somehow block out from you mind what might have been munching on your food before you got it and what you might have done to said munches. As a side note, I’ve read that a shallow bowl of beer is an excellent trap for slugs.

The rest of the sautée was made up of green and burgundy beans, white and red spring onions, garlic, and two kinds of zucchini all from the garden.

Of course, in order to keep getting lovely zucchini, I have to deal with these pests. I have not figured out how to prevent squash vine borers, and the moths that lay the eggs are hard to catch. Whenever I see a small hole with cornmeal looking stuff coming out of it (borer excrement), I use a metal grill skewer and a paring knife to open the vine at the hole and pull out the borers and squish them. The holes are usually at the junction of the leaves and the main vine, but they really crop up anywhere I then lay the vine on its side and cover it with soil just pat the excision mark.

Last but not least, the salad! I used a mix of garden lettuce and store bought Romaine. Check out the borage blossom garnish.