There’s a slug in my garden, or more likely, lots of them, eating my dahlia. Holes in every leaf, slimy tracks along the stem and not one single flower. I have this one single bulb, that I desperately want to grow into a bouquet of pompoms, but all my attempts and TLC are thwarted by hungry, slimy mouths. Yuck.

Since I am not a professional gardener, but a lawyer, I started with trying to find a legal solution, since obviously, the law can solve any problem. And from a legal point of view, the solution is quite simple, as one could of course argue that this slug has no right to eat the dahlia in my garden. I bought the bulb in the garden centre, where money was exchanged before I could bag it and take it home. According to Article 6:261 BW this exchange counts as a contract, in particular a contract of sale (Article 7:1 BW) and according to Article 3:84 BW, in fulfilment of its obligations under said contract, the garden centre subsequently transferred ownership of the bulb to me. Article 5:1 BW then explains to the world at large that ownership is an absolute right, which basically boils down to me being the only one who is entitled to decide who or what can (or preferably cannot) eat my dahlia. When I tried to explain this to the slug, it only looked at me as if I was barking mad, and quietly continued munching along.

Last year, when we had about 360 days of pouring rain, it was even worse. Growing a veg garden turned out to be just a very expensive way of feeding slugs and after three unsuccessful stints of sowing lettuce and a couple of store-bought plug plants that disappeared at an alarming rate before reaching full maturity, I gave up on the lettuce.

A quick search online taught me that I was far from the only one decrying the rampage slugs brought to our humble gardens. All kinds of creative methods to get rid of the fiends were shared: coffee grains, egg shells, copper wire, oats, beer traps and if you wanted to be really thorough: slug pellets. Eco friendly of course, because those who garden, care for the earth.

Poison is poison though, although slugs probably don’t care whether they die because of slug pellets, which stops their appetite so rigorously that they stop eating all together, or oats, which causes them swell and then dry out as the oats suck up all their body liquid.

When wading through all this ‘slugfluencer’ content and rapidly coming to the conclusion that apparently the only solution widely agreed upon is horrendous genocide, my permaculture training kicked in and the three ethical principles sprang to mind. Earth care, people care and fair share. It seems so simple, yet what does that mean?

The first two provisions seem fairly straightforward. In his Permaculture, A Designers’ Manual, ‘father of permaculture’ Bill Mollison defines ‘care of the earth’ as a ‘provision for all life systems to continue and multiply’ and ‘care of people’ as a ‘provision for people to access those resources necessary to their existence’. One of my students asked me last week whether that second provision was really necessary, since humans constitute a life system just as any other, don’t they? And of course, she was right. We might turn into trouble however, when we start differentiating between systems as a whole and individual members of that system, so for the time being, I would like to keep the second principle as it is. In Permaculture. Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability, David Holmgren readily admits that permaculture is an unashamedly human-centred philosophy and with my slug struggles in mind, I am not inclined to disagree at this moment.

The third one, although seemingly very straightforward, bugs me bit more though. Bill Mollison doesn’t speak about ‘fair share’. Instead he defines the third ethical principle as ‘setting limits to population and consumption’, which he subsequently explains as ‘by governing our own needs, we can set resources aside to further the above principles’. Not entirely unexpected I received some backlash in my research group when I tried to sell this principle, in conjunction with the other two. Setting limits is an unpopular message at the best of times and on top of that, it seems to contradict the first two ethical principles, because how could you on the one hand advocate the multiplication of life systems and limiting said life systems at the same time?

In an attempt to shed light on the matter, David Holmgren shifts the emphasis from ‘setting limits’ to ‘redistributing surplus’, but admits that the third principle contains a contradictory message of abundance and limits. However, according to Holmgren it is precisely this apparent paradox that helps us to continuously reflect on our relationship with nature and everything nature provides. A bowl full of juicy, sweet strawberries in summer inflicts a feeling of abundance, precisely because those strawberries are not available during the other parts of the year. Because of that limitation, we appreciate strawberries even more when they are in season again. Exercising self-restraint helps us furthermore to maintain autonomy, since otherwise an external factor may set those limits for us. Overfishing will eventually lead to a decline in fish stocks, which will ultimately limit our ability to consume fish.

However, although morally justifiable, the imperative to redistribute surplus does not necessarily follow from the provision to set limits to consumption and reproduction. Setting limits is necessary for self-preservation, but providing for others beyond your inner circle is not, unless one assumes all life systems to function in one big reciprocal circle. Bill Mollison seems to hint in this direction, whilst David Holmgren only reflects that the practice of sharing is something that is predominantly done in materially poor communities and could otherwise be regarded as atonement for our sins. However, as sympathetic as this may sound, there is no convincing evidence my sins – of which I have many – will indeed be forgiven (by whom?), by having the slugs eat my lettuce. Therefore, when trying to come to terms with lettuce-eating monsters, I tend to find that final explanation less convincing.

I can however testify to the truth of the statement that limitation leads to appreciation: everything that survived the slug onslaught was cherished and worshipped and no supermarket veggie could compete with it. That seems a viable argument to let the slugs run rampant in my garden.

They must have picked my brains before this blog was finished. I tried again with the lettuce this year. It’s gone already.