the war against slugs
The weather has definitely turned, it is damp and not especially cold, in fact it is perfect for molluscs. Although the summer has been mostly quite dry this doesn't seem to have discouraged them, and every time I go out of the front door of an evening they are clustering. My habit of going barefoot has had some unfortunate and deeply unpleasant consequences.This evening I decided I had had enough, there were some extraordinarily large and unpleasant specimens creeping up on my bananas. I gathered as many as I could into a convenient pot and dumped them into the middle of the road, there to take their chances with the traffic. I have to confess that I did up the ante on this operation, and when I popped out to the shops I was careful to drive down my side of the road, thus eliminating those invertebrates that made the unfortunate decision to return to my garden. Those who opted to make for my neighbours at least had a fighting chance, the others a quicker death than slug pellets or salt.
Now, if only the foxes would eat them, maybe starvation induced by the new compost buckets will encourage them to eat them up. We don't have hedgehogs or thrushes any more, the weather has been ideal for slugs and snails and we are over-run with them. Although there are plenty of frogs, in many cases the slugs are bigger than they are.
posted by Lampy @ 10/18/2005 06:40:00 pm
3 Comments:
During my time in England, I regularly endulged in a blood sport I called "Slug Coursing" (Similar to the banned "Hare Coursing" but much slower).
After filling a jar in the evening with the little swines, as you have done, I would release the catch in the middle of the hen run, those that got to the edge before become prey were welcome to my veg...
Imagine my surprise when filling up the hens water one day, I found a large number of unscathed slugs clinging to the underside of the water hopper..... And I thought they were stupid....
Great idea, but chickens might make our fox problem much worse (let's not consider the avian flu question).
On the whole I like to let them play with the traffic.
Maybe I could get some of the surplus South Uist hedgehogs sent down here, now that our traffic is calmed beyond human comprehension, the little blighters might stand a chance.
Aye, fortunately we had no problems what so ever with foxes in the lake disctrict town of Cockermouth and our hens went free around the garden when there wern't any fragile veg for them to destroy.
To introduce hens to an area already ridden with foxes, I don't think they'd last more than a day....
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