If you can chat up the local farmer and ask him for some straw. He may be willing to give you some that he can't use for his stock because it is old. Mine has given me two huge round bales already this year.

Think that I have solved the slug problem. Before I put the mulch down I scatter some slug bait on the ground. There doesn't seem to be any damage and neither have I seen any dead slugs.

It is working for now anyway.

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Gardening requires a lot of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson, critic and poet