Celeriac - 30th June.
Requiem for a dream and nightmare of an allotment garden of Nowhere in particular
I think I had a dream; some
might call it a nightmare. ‘The allotment garden of Nowhere in particular’ was
completely ravaged by an onslaught of slugs and snails. Their more usual and
gradual depletion of the garden had been surpassed by one fell, foul and rapacious
swoop – swoop? No. It was a slither, a mass rhythmic wave of gastropod intent,
which reduced the garden overnight to a mass of cud, excrement and a ghostly
presence of what was and might have been.
As ‘an allotment gardener of
Nowhere in particular’ I found, on Thursday evening, yet another site of slug
and snail damage – the celeriac/celery patch or really what was the celeriac/celery patch. I cried
out in horror, disgust and disbelief at the sight of several devoured celeriac
plants; their tops toppled and the roots burrowed into, made masticated pools
of goo. Ah well, I sighed; it’s not the end of the world. Although it was the end for
several slugs I sought out and despatched by means of scissors; to vengefully
cut the creatures in half.
I continued with a gloomy
reconnoitre of the allotment garden – the honeycombed summer cabbages, the
dwarf French beans stripped bare, whole sunflowers felled – chewed away at the
base of their stems. Squash plants sat limp, pale and
yellowing, their main stems hollowed out from the ground up. Where are the
lettuce seedlings? What’s happened to the parsnip seedlings? Gone. Disappeared.
I left a trail of bisected slugs and pulverised snails through an archipelago
of barren raised vegetable beds. A cool wind and drizzling rain added to the
abject psychodrama made of my gardening crisis.
I returned to the remains of
the celery and celeriac patch to fill in the gaps with a tray of beetroot
seedlings. Each transplanted seedling was provided with the protection of a
plastic bottle collar and a sprinkle of ferrous phosphate pellets to
temporarily frustrate the appetites of the slugs and snails. I tried to console
myself. Some of them might survive even if not unscathed. If it weren’t for the sound of the wind and rain I might have heard a myriad of gastropod mouthparts chewing on
the futility of my efforts. While on the road home from ‘the allotment garden
of Nowhere in particular’ I felt despondent, tired by the efforts of the day so
far and still not yet done for a few miles more. I entertained the despondency
with new words and conceits – ‘Slugocalypse’, ‘Slugalypse’, ‘Slugapocalypse’,
‘Slugopalypse’ - for the ensuing dream of ‘an allotment garden of Nowhere in
particular’ laid to waste. I think I had that dream, or nightmare, but I don’t
know if I should try and find it all or if it is better off lost in space.
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