6 May 2006
That time of year
Aside from frazzled tomato plants, I today discovered hard evidence that my most common garden foe is out and about wreaking the usual slimy, munchy havoc on my seedlings.
At home in the garden we have few slugs (unlike at the allotment), but unbelievable amounts of snails. Being a softie, I can’t bear the thought of killing them, even using methods that are organically sound, so I usually pick them up by the shell and transport them to my compost bins. That way they can eat as much as they like and their poo helps to enrich my compost. Everybody’s happy.
I have to confess to having a soft spot for snails, in spite of the damage they cause. Slugs are just plain ugly, not to mention ruthless, eating every single bit of any seedling they fancy. Snails, on the other hand, can be gorgeous to look at with their pretty shells and their eyes on stalks.
They are also a bit more considerate than slugs, contenting themselves with eating only part of the plant in what seem to be hard to reach places so that you can marvel at how acrobatic they must be to have munched on leaves at the top. Show offs.
Filed under: Wildlife — Clare @ 2:44 pm
Oh no - you poor thing. There’s nothing quite so bad as seeing your seedlings munched on by invertibrates.
To my surprise my new plot is completely devoid of slugs and snails. I couldn’t work out why? I mean it’s almost freakish to find a site without any slimey friends. Then I realised - the ducks!
There are a ton of ducks who come along and snuffle along the side of the plot looking for grubs, worms and anything else they can gobble up. Of course, they eat the slugs. Genius!
All you need is a bunch of ducks!
(08.05.06 @ 10:38 am)
Oh yes, I certainly could do with ducks. Our allotment site is not very far from a canal where there are loads of ducks, but it’s perhaps just a bit too far for them to pop over to me for a snack when there’s ample food all around them.
I’ll just have to keep on with sowing the sacrifical lettuce!
(08.05.06 @ 7:50 pm)