No, I’m not going mad. Here at Chez Rivendell, scrambled egg plays a big role in fighting slugs! And it’s not the only odd thing with which I garden. Sometimes a bit of eccentricity not only makes life interesting but it can actually work.

The approach of spring has me watching carefully for the return of some welcome visitors. That sudden feeling of happiness when the bats emerge from their winter slumber in my cavity wall and start flying around the house dining on whatever is unfortunate enough to be waiting for them. And the wondering why, viewed from below, they always fly anti-clockwise. One flew into my study one evening and decided my head was a comfortable resting place. He didn’t want to leave!

And lower down, I’m watching for signs of nocturnal activity – hedgehog poop. I know there are a couple of hogs nestling in the leaf pile I left for them by the pond, sharing the space with a few large frogs. There are others in the vicinity. Those little black sausages mean they’re also hunting for their food – slugs. Now at this time of the year the slugs are, well, sluggish. The hogs are hungry and what I don’t want is them going elsewhere to eat. I want them here and, in due course, when mamma hog shoots out her hoglets, I want her to bring them here for breakfast too.

Hence scrambled egg. The hogs love it. And I often find myself with the odd egg or two that’s gone past its date. So rather than send them off for recycling, I’ll crack one into a mug, stir it up a bit with a fork and pop the mug into the microwave for a couple of minutes. Result, plain scrambled egg that’s just right for the hogs. A bowl in a little shelter (to stop resident cat munching while on patrol) and a check the following morning for the concentration of pooplets around the entrance. Yep! They’re hanging around the place. and, refreshed by their little snack, will do a circuit of the garden, hoovering up any slugs they find en-route before popping back to bed in the leaf pile.

They don’t seem to desert the leaf pile until mid-April and, by then, will usually have been joined by a pal or two.

I scribbled something about Slugs a while ago – you can read it here.

And did you know you can also garden with Camomile Tea? Here’s how.