Trying to Reason with Snails
“I knew when I had looked for a long time that I had hardly begun to see. ”
One of the things the pandemic has taught me is to pay attention to what I pay attention to. Sometimes the larger patterns coalesce into a fleeting picture that almost makes sense. Other times it's just a tossed salad of unknowns.
Last night at midnight, I went into the garden to see who I'd meet. More accurately, I went out to see who was consuming it - much of what I've planted has disappeared, dwindling daily. First, there's the gopher, whose tunnel brings him directly to where the snap peas once thrived. What's left is mulch and a hole. This afternoon I saw him scampering into a clump of nasturtiums carrying off a long sprig of California poppy after he'd already destroyed the carrots and the potatoes.
The earwigs turn hollyhock leaves to lace, the tomatoes into a single withered twig and the asparagus into dry stalks. I spray the earwigs with Safer soap and watch them squirm. Just a couple of months ago I used to meticulously carry them outside whenever they hitchhiked indoors in a flower.
The main culprits are the snails - my gentle friends, the beautiful, attentive snails. The problem is, they are not interested in a conversation about protecting the garden. As I walked the garden beds last night, my headlamp illuminated the late-night ocean mist swirling around me. In a high branch, the great blue heron cawed his displeasure at being disturbed by my muttering. I was talking to the snails again. Last night, the snails and slugs were everywhere. I alternately stomped on them or hurled them over the fence, furious at each one.
Who is this midnight version of myself? I have relapsed. Or perhaps emerged into cold-hearted clarity: I am willing to share, but I am not willing to grow a garden exclusively or even primarily as a critter buffet. How to balance appreciation and fury? Reverence and exasperation?
I am aware that my frustration with their snail-ness, gopher-ness and earwig-ness is about more than losing the spinach: the pandemic rages on; this morning our president advised farmers to grab their guns in order to protect their potatoes. My mother is in hospice care. Her body is shutting down. She has severe dementia and whenever her meds wear off, she freaks out. There is an endless list of phone calls that seems to multiply in the dark. I feel besieged: my only hope is the garden that belongs to the other-than-humans who own the night. Was it only two weeks ago that I wrote of being deranged? If I weren't so freaked out that would be funny.
The layer beneath those layers simply reveals information: the snails and the earwigs attack certain plants but not others. They hide at the base of the enormous flowering succulent but do not eat it. It is thriving and resplendent. And so I wonder, what makes certain plants vulnerable and others resilient? And what does the garden destruction tell me about the kind of invisible imbalances I am dealing with - in the soil as well as in my ability to cope?
Two weeks ago I applied a foliar spray of worm juice and compost inoculant - a potent microbial brew that produced nearly instant results: healthier leaves, the look of luminous health, and, not surprisingly, less nocturnal destruction. Worm juice (actually, worm urine) is the only natural substance that maintains a perfect microbial balance. When it is applied (highly diluted) to a plant's leaves, the plant sends signals into the soil through root exudates that feed those specifically balanced microbes, and they appear. Voilà. The soil and the plants are brought into balance and strengthened thanks to the humble worm.
Where is the love-juice to slather on my skin and bring me into balance? Where the calm heart that can see beneath the soil of my own overwhelm? One night, years ago, on a night much like last night, I lay awake, unable to sleep. In desperation, I got out of bed and lay down on the floor on my belly. The question came: What relationships do you tend? Now I would add, And how do you tend them so that all things thrive, even and especially when balance seems out of reach? Never mind that we must find ways to tend the relationships that are invisible, from a distance. Let the epitaph for the pandemic be this: Death has taught us how to love.
