My battle with garden predators has started in earnest after a long period of neglect (to the garden that is). The local slugs can manage to eat more salad in a day than Paul Newman has salad dressing for. A friend of mine has late night forays and picks off the offending nibblers and puts them in plastic bags then, wait for it, puts them in the freezer to euthanize them.I don’t think I’ll be doing anything quite so humane, as my freezer is full of unlabelled objects that are unrecognizable as food. The likelihood of a mishap here is too huge to contemplate. I can just see my long suffering wife popping a few into her friend’s gin and tonic.
Instead, I’ll continue to throw them over into my neighbor’s yard for a short vacation. Maybe I should start tagging them so I know how fast they return. I have a few helpers this year, in the shape of 2 cute Buff Orpingtons, who have a taste for the little ones.
The main culprit, however, is not the ubiquitous banana slug, or poor man’s peaches as they get called here on account of their color, but the equally ubiquitous Mule Deer. It is quite a symbiotic relationship really. I grow the stuff, and they eat it.
One of these days, I might find out what the results of my agrarian effort tastes like.
Maybe we could genetically alter them so they only eat Dandelions
What a thought.
Nematodes......s'all I'm saying.... natural murder. http://www.unwins.co.uk/nemaslug-nematodes-slug-killer-40m2-pid1504.html?gclid=CKSd5eiZ0acCFUFC4Qod_CUrCQ
ReplyDeleteGo for it.
Hate slugs I am a murderer .. Salt and lots of it .. yuck.
ReplyDeleteI think a slug in your Gin and Tonic would almost rival my condom in the dishwasher xx
Wow! They are mad looking slugs! I once tried the snail/slug pub method. You fill a dish with beer and they climb in and get so drunk they can't be bothered to get out again. Unfortunately I forgot to check if any had climbed in and it was sunny for the next week. You can imagine the smell!
ReplyDeleteThey are pests I don't mind getting rid of them. I can't kill a spider, worm or bee though xx
aaaagh...I hate them, many moons ago, I once lived in a big old house in north London with the boyfriend and various sundries...... one up from a squat, completely unrenovated with a flag stone floor in the kitchen leading out through the original back scullery into the garden...then I noticed the silver lattice work of slug trails every morning. I used to circle the back of the house with a tin of saxa night after night like some pagan ritual and refused ever to come downstairs before dawn.....kill them!!
ReplyDeleteUgh, those slugs are yucky! Our slugs are smaller but still horrid and annoying. I hear you can leave a tub of beer out and they climb in and die but that's a very expensive way of getting rid of them. Here we have munkjack (not sure of spelling ) deer who look cute and eat most things including flowers. Nature and gardening is greatly overrated in my opinion, Shoes are better.
ReplyDeleteOh Legend,
ReplyDeleteWhat a post, and so very creative of you to bring this to us.
When I lived in Washington state we had lots of snails, and slugs...Here in Calif on the desert not so much you never really see them, now and then a really heavy garden, and we control them with a pie pan filled with beer, they do slim in and drink and die !!!
could there be any better way to go!!!
The salt works well, and so many things else, keeping it natural is best!
Thank you for your visit and comments always are so treasured when coming from you!
Would love to see you try your hand at a flea market find, turning it into a shabby piece of art!
Let us see your handy-work :)
You will then become a true legend of all time :)
xx
Dore
omg, those are unreal - they look like banana peppers. Can see why you wouldn't want to put them in the freezer. Seriously, stepping on slugs in the dark is one of my all time bad childhood memories!
ReplyDeleteSlugs are voracious little bastards, aren't they? We've got millions of slugs and snails round at ours.
ReplyDeleteI managed to persuade a hedgehog to come and live with us and this helped quite a bit until we found his dessicated body at the bottom of the wood pile.
This summer I'm getting chooks, so am keeping fingers crossed that they take over where the hogeheg left off.
Deer in the garden? You are utterly f*cked, my friend. the Roe Deer here eat everything except fuchsias.
Good luck!
AX
Oh dear I am a murderer too bit of a salt queen or else I let the chickens do the killing for me and call it nature's revenge...!!!
ReplyDelete