Twee weeks ago the weather was quite dry and had been for almost 6 weeks. I had kept an eye on the humidity in the Edible Log Farm but with a dense canopy cover, a northerly (cold) wind and cloudy skies the logs were not suffering from the lack of precipitaion. However roughly two weeks ago fine hair cracks began to appear at the sawn ends of some of the logs, a signal that it was time to give the logs a moisture boost. A number of logs were able to enjoy an extended cold bath in the big soaking container and the remaining logs were treated to a two hour long sprinkler session. Shortly afterwards the weather changed and we were treated to much needed rain. The showers were a joy to embrace but also the precursor to trepidation …. because warm weather and a slippery surface is essential for snails and slugs.
Last year was an amazing year for snails and slugs. Productive shii-take logs were extremely popular. For every mushroom there were often four or more big fat orange slugs crowded around determinedly munching away. I even began seeing them in my dreams… not good. With the onset of autumn the slugs turned their attention to copulation and I found slug eggs almost everywhere. A bad sign for the coming year.
I had my snail and slug warfare plan ready early on this year. Fortunately (or unfortunately for the snails and slugs) the prolonged dry weather was (apparently) not beneficial to the slug population. Instead of the expected massive onslought coinciding with the development of the mushrooms during the two weeks after log watering / wet weather, the slugs were small in size and few in number. Good news for the mushrooms.
The result? Today I picked lots and lots of soft, fleshy full grown stylish shii-take mushrooms. Minimum slugs. Perfect.
(Almost) No slugs!
