I left my apartment building and headed down the street to the park, hoping to find some of these nocturnal creatures stuffing themselves on foliage. A few slime trails glittered in the LED streetlight’s glow. In The Secret World of Slugs and Snails, I had read how slugs and snails propel themselves by secreting mucus that allows them to easily slide over surfaces that defy imagination (including razor blades and sharp glass). This slime is even being used in cancer research as a way to target specific malignant cells without affecting surrounding healthy cells.

Every once in a while, I stopped and pushed aside some wet brown leaves with the toe of my shoe. My breath curled around the flashlight’s beam like steam around a train’s headlight in a film noir. I had nearly submitted to the cold and turned home when I pointed the beam at a wall, where the light fell upon a three-inch-long light grey slug with mottled stripes down its back. Deroceras reticulatum: the Grey fieldslug.

The little fellow in front of me stretched his eyes out, maybe wondering about the bright light that had interrupted his nighttime foraging. The skin that skimmed the concrete wall looked fragile and translucent—like veins in a leaf or the flesh of an orange. These tiny creatures are much more complex than anyone gives them credit for—they’re highly evolved to slowly and steadily survive in a world that rushes on above their heads.

My favorite anecdote in the book comes from Charles Darwin. He wrote of a pair of snails who were placed in a barren garden. The healthier snail left a trail of slime over the wall toward a more abundant garden next door. Observers assumed the snail had said sayonara to its weak buddy, but a day later, they were surprised to see the strong snail return to accompany its mate to the land of plenty.

As I made my way home, I thought about the coexistent nocturnal world I’d never taken the time to notice. If I hadn’t tried to look at the world on the slug’s level, would I have noticed the smell of the soil, the millipede hiding in the gravel, or the beautiful empty snail shell half hidden in the dirt?

David George Gordon will be at the Pacific Northwest Garden Show this Sunday 2/27 giving a seminar called Forging a Lasting Peace with Slugs and Snails at 2:15 PM.

He will also be speaking at Sky Nursery on Sunday 3/5 at 11 AM.

For more information about David George Gordon and a full list of his upcoming events, please check out his website: davidgeorgegordon.com.

Growing up on a small Vermont homestead, I was often put to work harvesting and preserving the seasonal bounty. We had a two-acre garden and miles of wild fruits and berries to sustain our family of six. I helped fill five-gallon buckets with blueberries and wheelbarrows with cucumbers, and took hikes through the woods with my dad to find hidden apple trees. After the harvest, I would help my mom fill row after row of mason jar with tomatoes, dilly beans, raspberry jam, apple butter, and cucumbers, just to name a few. Months later, with our home covered in snow, we’d fill our bellies with the fruits of our labor.

Though I no longer live in the country, I’m often reminded of that life when the plum trees of Seattle are overflowing with fruit. A few weeks ago, a friend and I biked to the house of a neighbor, who had more plums then he knew what to do with, and picked about twelve pounds worth. We then sat around chatting while we pitted the plums, cooked, and filled jars with sweet, velvety plum jam.

If you know where to look and what to pick, a country life can be found, even in a bustling metropolis.

Here’s a recipe for plum jelly from Canning & Preserving Your Own Harvest, a handy offshoot of The Encyclopedia of Country Living.

Plum Jelly

Most old neighborhoods seem to have at least one ancient plum tree, buzzing with yellow jackets and laden with fruit that goes unpicked. Don a protective long-sleeved shirt and brave the wasps for the makings of this beautiful jewel-toned jelly. Different varieties of plums will yield slightly different results as their natural pectin levels vary. Damson plums are very tart with acidic skins and are much higher in pectin than other plums, for example.

Season: Mid- to late summer
Yield: 6 cups
Store: Cool, dark pantry

4 pounds Italian prune plums, halved and pitted (at least
1/4 of which should be barely ripe)
2 cups water
3 to 4 cups sugar
3 to 5 tablespoons lemon juice
Place the plums and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer until the fruit is very soft, 15 to 20 minutes.

Transfer the fruit to a dampened jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined colander suspended over a bowl. Drain for several hours to fully extract the juices. The yield will be about 4 cups. Do not press on the fruit, squeeze the bag, or try to hurry the process in any way—if you do, you will cloud what should be a rosy-golden, crystal-clear juice.

Measure the strained juice into a preserving pan and add 1 cup of sugar for every cup of plum juice; taste, adding lemon juice to make the fruit pleasantly tart.

Heat the mixture over medium-high heat to bring it rapidly to a boil, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves. Cook the jam until it reaches 220°F on a kitchen thermometer. Remove from heat.

Carefully ladle the hot jelly into hot, sterilized half-pint jars, allowing 1/4 inch headspace. Use a water-bath canning technique and process for 10 minutes.