I know how Noah must have felt. The Northeast has had a spring that makes the Northwest look like the Sahara Desert as we have had fewer days of sun than I have fingers. Most folks I talk with hate this weather and its associated gloom and dampness. Few plants are coming out with the tomato, squash and other flowers in stasis waiting for any sign of sun to burst out and form fruit.
The only thing in bloom is fungus and mold. And slugs. Lots of slugs.
 
After establishing a strawberry patch last year, every fruit that is harvested is counterbalanced by a slug or mold-ridden counterpart. Even the intact strawberries disappoint as their promised flavor is diluted by excessive water leading to a mushy, tasteless treat. The rest of the garden is much the same with slugs crawling over everything leaving both their tale-tail slime trail and holes in my lettuce, potatoes, hostas, zinnias and anything else that comes in their way. And while there was hope for sunshine today, the clouds and rain have descended to blanket us yet again. So the slugs will continue to rein supreme.
This is when being a good Buddhist or philosopher is needed. There is nothing a gardener can do about the weather. You just have to accept it and move on. I have a friend who is just starting new gardens in a house he rents who flashes hot and cold. Between the joy and deep satisfaction he gets from tilling the soil and planting an elephant ear, he becomes deeply upset and depressed when the garden does not perform as planned. So when I look at the net effect of gardening for him I am saddened as I think he is not getting everything out of this new hobby that he could.
If you don’t want to lose your passion for the the garden, you have to always look at the advantages of the current situation and act upon them. And even with all the slug and fungus damage, I have never seen the garden so lush. Perhaps it’s time to start looking for more water-tolerant plants that will thrive in this type of environment.
Too much rain? Well, you don’t have to water. Too mucky to weed? Well, time to catch up on your reading. Fungus and slugs in the garden? Time to work on new techniques on how to keep them down. Maybe I should get a garter snake or chickens to help me pick off the slugs.
Picking slugs out of your plants can be very therapeutic. I’ve had mixed success with all the natural means of control (iron phosphate, copper strips, tuna fish cans filled with beer, etc.) So as the light wanes, I get a jar filled with salty water and a pair of tweezers looking through my plants. Turning each leaf is filled with mixed emotions. Part of you wants to find no slugs or damage. But the other part wants to find a big gray or green slug that is one pinch away from its final resting place in saline solution. It’s a quiet time where I kneel and just focus on the chore at hand. Nothing is wrong, I’m just working in the garden. As darkness falls, I look at my beaker of slugs, which are dissolving in little salty plumes that are making their way to the surface of the water.
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Fungi were previously included in the plant kingdom, but are now seen to be more closely related to animals. Unlike embryophytes and algae which are generally photosynthetic, fungi are often saprotrophs: obtaining food by breaking down and absorbing surrounding materials. Most fungi are formed by microscopic structures called hyphae, which may or may not be divided into cells but contain eukaryotic nuclei.