Clear emerging perennial shoots of old wet leaves and winter ullage – to make it easier to see what is going on and get the upper hand in the slug war.
My question is, "what is ullage?" The OED defines it as
The amount of wine or other liquor by which a cask or bottle falls short of being quite full (originally the quantity required to make good the loss by leakage or absorption).
There are some vaguely colloquial usages, but nothing that really matches "the soggy stuff that collects around plants over winter". My guess is that it is a typo for "foliage", although I'm not entirely convinced that's right. Either way, it's a great word, and the next time I have a bottle of wine I will point at the air at the top of the bottle and say, "Wow! Look at the ullage on that!"
