It’s a sunny holiday weekend, and a young woman’s thoughts turn to murder.
Gastropod murder, in particular. I’ve been doing a lot of gardening over the past few weeks, and it’s all-out war. In addition to the usual complement of perennial herbs, I’ve got about forty potato plants and a dozen tomato seedlings going. The slugs and snails leave both of these species well alone, presumably because the Solanum alkaloids in the leaves are not to their liking.
Chives 1, Snails nil One application of Metaldehyde takes out the entire local population
But I’ve had miserable failures over the past few years with nearly everything else. Possibly the biggest bloodbath was the time I planted out twenty runner bean plants, each reared indoors to the height of about three feet, and in the morning found the razed stubs of their bare stalks plastered against the ground in quivering pools of ectoplasm. But there have also been decimated swathes of lettuce and rocket, chives, peppers, Lobelia, marigolds, and a devastatingly beautiful orange dahlia (I actually cried when that one went). I haven’t even been able to grow one of the most robust, fast-growing weeds in creation: the common mint.
When we bought our house we found a green bottle of slug pellets under the kitchen sink, but I had always been reluctant to use pesticides because we have a cat. And I thought things were looking up: this spring, the gastropod population seemed have been culled by the colder-than-usual winter. One afternoon, I threw caution to the wind and planted a lovely chive, but as night fell, I came out to find the thing half-digested by snails.
That was it. I found the bottle of Metaldehyde pellets and showered the remains with bright blue confetti. And in the morning, it was like the Somme. I left the corpses where they were as a warning to their fellows; I’m happy to report that the chive fully recovered, and our cat is alive and well. I’ve used the pellets sparing elsewhere with similar success and it’s given me the courage to try runner beans and strawberries again this year.
Although there are websites suggesting that slug pellets aren’t as environmentally unfriendly as the organic crusaders would want us to believe, I still feel vaguely guilty using the stuff. So I thought I’d give equal time to a contraption that Nev came up with, which we reserved for that enticing of all snail delicacies, the bean. And all you need are two saucers, a brick and salt pellets:
The only potential problem I can see with this design is that if any of the grass gets too long, or they work out how to abseil down from the nearby lilac bush, the game will be up. But I’ll keep you posted when the seedlings sprout.
A few seconds ago, all activity on this post disappeared from my snapshot page (I noticed, because that was pretty much the entire page of it prior to refreshing the screen), and now I see there really are no comments here?
What’s going on?
There were thirty-odd comments here! And they were brilliant!
I think the slugs must be staging a counter-attack — not even MT4 can save us now.
Richard could be right. I saw this chap this morning and he was headed in your direction.
Not a slug, I know, but I suspect he’s on the same team…
The snails in Cromer can fly.
All sectors, scramble
The slug gods are definitely angry now. But fortunatel I had all the comments cached! I wouldn’t normally bother, but there are some really edifying Shakespearean monologues below the fold…
Eva Amsen said: This reminds me of my two-year struggle to fight moths. The beginning is here The end I haven’t written about yet, because I’m still not entirely sure I won… But I ended up reverting to chemicals, too. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:30 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: Oh…moths are evil. Let us hope that the battle has indeed been won! [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:34 UTC Richard Grant said: We used to get moths in the damned breakfast cereal and other things in Sydney. One conversation: “Why is the rice in the freezer?” “Moths” “ah.” [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:42 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: Used to have weird bugs in our bread flour. That was hideous. Tupperware is the solution to all problems. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:50 UTC Darren Saunders said: Richard, no doubt you’re referring to the Bogong Moths which cause havoc when they invade Sydney on a semi-regular basis, having been blown off-course from their seasonal migration. Probably not to everyone’s taste, but they are actually edible. They were an important source of protein in the Aboriginal peoples’ diet. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:53 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: I don’t mind admitting I am very girlishly squeamish about the whole bugs-n-rainwater thing. Can we talk about slugs? [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:54 UTC Richard Grant said: bogan moths, more like. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:54 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: S-L-U-G-S. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:55 UTC Richard Grant said: Can we talk about slugs? Sure. Looks like rain tonight. I’m worried about my marigolds. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:58 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: I’ll reward a basket of fresh spuds to anyone who can work out why these comments aren’t registering on the counter after my title on http://network.nature.com/blogs. Apparently it’s bad manners to tell a programmer that there might be a bug. Richard, I’d bring those marigolds in. Seriously. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:59 UTC Darren Saunders said: Bogans are from Melbourne, in Sydney they’re Westies [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:01 UTC Richard Grant said: Nope, Newcastle is the source of Bogans in Sydney. Bad Manners Jenny? They should give you a t-shirt. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:03 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: It just started raining. Let the decimation begin! [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:03 UTC Richard Wintle said: Hm. We had “weird bugs” in a bag of budgie food once… nasty little things about a quarter of an inch long. Looked like long thing beetles of some kind, but could have been true bugs I suppose. Jenny – I feel your pain – we planted a whole lot of Morning Glories along our fence one year, all of which sprouted and were then systematically nipped off an inch or two above ground. An entomologist friend diagnosed cutworms; I suspect mice. There are lots of snails in this part of the world, but not in our backyard strangely enough. Grove Snails, which I guess are the same as yours – pretty things. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:10 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: Mmmm. About as pretty as pubic lice. Oddly enough, our morning glories are fine here. I guess there are too many cats about to have a mouse problem, and the slugs definitely aren’t interested. I planted them from a packet a few years ago and every year I harvest their seeds and plant them in the same place. It’s been fascinating watching the bred phenotype slowly unravel. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:39 UTC Richard Grant said: I had an idea for a slug/snail motion detector that actually fires slug pellets at the little bastards. Fun for all the family. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:42 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: Interestingly, there are pest control scientists who are working on tiny robots with knives than crawl through fields identify weeds using image analysis software. I swear I am not making this up. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:07 UTC Eva Amsen said: It sounds like the start of a horrible SF film. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:17 UTC Richard Grant said: Yes Jenny, They’re called Gurkhas. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:48 UTC Richard Grant said: Oh! I’m sure there won’t news about slugs and snails, but I do want to point people towards Jenny’s other industry, which has gone all modern on us all of a sudden. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:52 UTC Cath Ennis said: I’m following Kyrsten’s suggestion from last year. Beer-filled containers strategically placed among the plants are doing a good job at decimating the local slug population. I’ve also heard that crushed egg shells work (they’re too painful to slime over), but you’d have to put a ring around each plant, which seems a little too labour intensive. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:54 UTC Cath Ennis said: p.s. I did some murdering of my own yesterday. Specifically, I set fire to lots of dandelion clocks. Very satisfying, very effective at preventing seed dispersal while you dig the plants out, and well worth the blister that seems to have formed on my thumb. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:57 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: Oh, pyrotechnics. I am jealous because it seems a lot harder than mere poison. I haven’t had much luck with beer, simply because of the sheer number of the blighters. You’d need a Titanic-sized bowl. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 20:09 UTC Henry Gee said: Jenny – worry no longer, the Doctor is In. The Spring after we moved to Cromer we had slugs like other people have the release of calcium from buses that never arrive at the station. The slugs were about three feet long (each), with enormous fangs like steak knives and great, big red eyes that would stare balefully at you in the dark. If you went into the garden at night you ran the risk of being surrounded. I used slug pellets, and these are OK, if you have the right sized catapult and can score a direct hit between the eyes, but the trick is to use far fewer than you would think – the unused pellets wash into the soil, and apparently is no good at all to the soil biota. Intensive research at the Maison Des Girrafes Horticultural Research Station (a.k.a. the garden shed) has found three good solutions. 1) Coffee grounds. The caffeine in real coffee is lethal to all marauding molluscs. Surround your sensitive plants with a cordon of grounds, or, as I do, dilute the coffee grounds in your watering can when you water the plants. 2) Gravel. Slugs and snails hate slithering over gravel – I plant anything sensitive in pots or large containers on a gravel bed. 3) Frogs. If you haven’t done so already, dig yourself a wildlife pond in your garden. Make it a decent size: six foot by three is a minimum, and ensure it’s at least three feet deep at one end to encourage water circulation (so you won’t need fiddly electric pumps). Use the earth as topsoil or soil conditioner. Line the hole with heavy-duty black polythene, fill up with the hose pipe and leave nature do the rest. Pretty soon the pond will attract all kinds of entertaining wildlife, and hopefully, next spring, you’ll have spawn. Once the local amphibia have discovered your pond, they’ll keep coming back. A couple of frogs are all you need to clear a garden of slugs. With ponds, the bigger the better. Until this year we had one pond of the dimensions I’ve described. I’ve just dug another pond next to it that’s double the area and half again as deep. Animals in ponds tend to assume a size commensurate with their habitat – the tadpoles in the small pond are regular-sized specimens, but those I introduced to the big pond are as big as small nucelar submarines. Digging a pond is good for the environment: more wildlife ponds are getting filled in than dug anew, and frogs need them for breeding. Given the worldwide decline in amphibian populations, it’s another way to Save The Planet as well as creating an exciting feature in your garden and encouraging an effective way to rid your garden of pests. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 20:31 UTC Henry Gee said: Oh yes, you also need to rescue some chickens. Since we’ve been keeping chickens the numbers of pests in the garden has declined to virtually nil – and the soil is so rich in nitrogen, phosphates and earthworms that we can grow practically anything it. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 20:54 UTC Cath Ennis said: But do you have a duck island? [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 21:03 UTC Henry Gee said: I might, if I had ducks. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 21:25 UTC Kristi Vogel said: ensure it’s at least three feet deep at one end to encourage water circulation AHHAHAAHAHA! I’d be lucky to be able to dig down 3 inches in most of my backyard, without incurring transient soft tissue damage in my hands. No ponds for me, or for the neighborhood toads. :-( Here’s a geological explanation to give you some idea of the gardening challenges I face. If you scroll down to Figure 4, note that I live on the Edwards limestone outcrop, or “recharge zone”. And out crops is exactly what it does. Raised beds are the best option for vegetable and herb gardening, and then the rest of the plants have to be drought-tolerant and like shallow alkaline soil. Before I moved to the Clapham area with my London flatmates, we lived in a terraced house in Tooting. The cat could only visit yards in the terraced block, and yet one summer she kept bringing small frogs into the flat. We had no idea where she was finding frogs, until one day, my flatmate was talking to an elderly neighbor, who mentioned that he’d recently won a gardening contest. “The prize was a group of 50 frogs for me backyard pond”, the old man said, “but I only have three left. Can’t for the life of me figure out what happened to ’em”. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 22:05 UTC Richard Grant said: Well, I’ve coated the legs of the rack containing the marigolds, and the rims of the strawberry pots_, with a mix of petroleum jelly and red diesel (the people who had this house previously must have been very naughty). According to Cooch Windgrass, this should do the trick. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 22:06 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: Henry, you are my hero. There are lots of ponds around here, and a good number of frogs. Our cat kills a lot of them, actually. But I’d like a pond anyway — maybe this is the year we finally do it. There is a local hedgehog about the size of a lorry that comes crashing through the underbrush of our back garden on occasion (why are hedgehogs so loud?), but I don’t think he’s pulling his weight. Interestingly, on that garden website I cite in my post, it’s claimed that “an investigation…found that hedgehogs could eat up to 200 slugs that had eaten [slug] pellets, in one night, with no ill effects.” Maybe I should get one on retainer. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 22:07 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: Richard, what is ‘red diesel’? Sounds like a British expression I ought to know. It’s not related to that weird stuff described in Phil Ball’s novel, is it? [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 06:39 UTC Richard Grant said: It’s diesel that’s taxed at a lower rate than diesel for road vehicles. So for heating, or agricultural use. There’s a red dye put in it so HM Customs can test your diesel car when you go to an agricultural show and make sure you’re not cheating on paying tax. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 06:49 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: How very British. I am happy to report that despite the heavy rains and a Glastonbury-sized population of gastropods arriving in our garden for the occasion, everything is still alive and untouched! [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 07:00 UTC Richard Grant said: According to El Wiki, other countries do similar things. I can’t see any Gastropoda near my strawbs or marigolds. So far, so good. I think you must have the Rotherhithe Division. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 09:37 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: As another Henry (almost) said: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility, But when the blast of slugs blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the chicken: Stiffen the sinews, sprinkle the pellets, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 09:50 UTC Richard Grant said: Is this a slug I see before me, its slime towards my marigolds? [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 10:06 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: No, it is the East, and metaldehyde is the Sun. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 10:47 UTC Richard Grant said: Slug, what’s here? Poison? Drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after? [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 10:58 UTC Henry Gee said: But soft – what slug on yonder marigold breaks? [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 11:13 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: Alas, poor marigold — I knew him, Horatio. a dicot of infinite jest, of most excellent cotyledons: he hath borne me on his sepals a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung shredded those petals that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your leaves now? your stamens? your phloem? your pistils of merriment, that were wont to set the garden on a roar? [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 11:33 UTC Richard Grant said: The quality of methiocarb is not strain’d, It droppeth as pellets from containers Upon the soil beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that pours and him that shakes: ‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The prickled hedgehog better than his snout; His spines shows the force of biological control, The attribute to awe and snuffliness, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of slugs; But methiocarb is above this blue-tinged sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of gardeners, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God’s When methiocarb seasons lettuce. Therefore, Slug, Though mercy be thy plea, consider this, That, in the course of gardening, none of us Should see fresh chives: we do pray for pest control; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render Strawberries unharmed. I have spoke thus much To instigate gastropodal genocide; Which if thou follow, this strict court of Rotherhithe Must needs give sentence ’gainst the slug there. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 11:56 UTC Heather Etchevers said: I know you are expecting me to chip in here, but you all said it so much better and sooner. I’ve settled for copper sulfate. I don’t know what it will do to the earthworms, though. Along the lines of coffee grounds (for which Nespresso capsules are useless) I’ve been told that circles of ash are helpful as well. If you have a working fireplace and the desire to use it, which I don’t. There are bits and pieces of my plantations left after yesterday’s hail. I am pleased to learn I don’t have to worry so much about the tomatoes. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 12:14 UTC Heather Etchevers said: I know you are expecting me to chip in here, but you all said it so much better and sooner. I’ve settled for copper sulfate. I don’t know what it will do to the earthworms, though. Along the lines of coffee grounds (for which Nespresso capsules are useless) I’ve been told that circles of ash are helpful as well. If you have a working fireplace and the desire to use it, which I don’t. There are bits and pieces of my plantations left after yesterday’s hail. I am pleased to learn I don’t have to worry so much about the tomatoes. [ Flag as inappropriate ] # Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 13:34 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: I always wonder how people who use coffee grounds for pest control manage to get enough of it. I really like the idea of it, but I guess you’d need to cultivate a relationship with your local café and arrange to pick up their spent stuff.oops. That’s not very pretty.
There must be a better way but I’m just not tech savvy enough. :-)
Heh heh.
Oops.
Slug here. Really sorry for the missing comments. I posted an explanation in the private bloggers group.
My fault for querying a silly bug – won’t be doing that again.
Please don’t worry about it.
I’ve heard ciggie butts soaked in water is a good natural insecticide too… only you don’t smoke…so…sorry I’ll shut up now…
Ian, I thought you were trying to quit. Tsk tsk!
I think Starbucks have some kind of coffee grounds pick-up scheme.
I will sell you my coffee grounds. It will cost the same as I paid for them before use, but it will save you the hassle of grinding, making coffee, and drinking coffee. I will take over that part of the used-coffee-ground production chain for no additional charge.
(Shipping cost not included.)
And Ian can sell his ciggie butts, and they can both use the profits to buy beer!
So many drug references in a gardening post…
Well, all the high-faluting Shakespearean comments got lost in the Great Comments Cull, so we’re improvising here!
beer kills them too… they fall into the beer and die. Something with osmosis or just plain alcohol poisoning I guess.
And in regards to the copy and paste: my gosh, it looks like a rant from a crazy person ;) (or maybe several is more correct?!?!)
I agree with the Beer comment from Asa. Very true – we used to use it in the garden all the time. Just get one of those feta cheese containers (or sour cream, some sort of little tube), fill it with beer and then dig a little hole for the tub so the edge of it will be ground level with the slug. They love it, come over for a drink, and fall right in and die. Oh, and don’t drink the beer after, so it’d better be something you’re not fond of.
This reminds me of my two-year struggle to fight moths. The beginning is here
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:30 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:The end I haven’t written about yet, because I’m still not entirely sure I won… But I ended up reverting to chemicals, too.
Oh…moths are evil. Let us hope that the battle has indeed been won!
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:34 UTC Richard Grant said:We used to get moths in the damned breakfast cereal and other things in Sydney.
One conversation:
“Why is the rice in the freezer?”
“Moths”
“ah.”
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:42 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:Used to have weird bugs in our bread flour. That was hideous. Tupperware is the solution to all problems.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:50 UTC Darren Saunders said:Richard, no doubt you’re referring to the Bogong Moths which cause havoc when they invade Sydney on a semi-regular basis, having been blown off-course from their seasonal migration.
Probably not to everyone’s taste, but they are actually edible. They were an important source of protein in the Aboriginal peoples’ diet.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:53 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:I don’t mind admitting I am very girlishly squeamish about the whole bugs-n-rainwater thing. Can we talk about slugs?
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:54 UTC Richard Grant said:bogan moths, more like.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:54 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:S-L-U-G-S.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:55 UTC Richard Grant said:Can we talk about slugs?
Sure. Looks like rain tonight. I’m worried about my marigolds.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:58 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:I’ll reward a basket of fresh spuds to anyone who can work out why these comments aren’t registering on the counter after my title on http://network.nature.com/blogs.
Apparently it’s bad manners to tell a programmer that there might be a bug.
Richard, I’d bring those marigolds in. Seriously.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 17:59 UTC Darren Saunders said:Bogans are from Melbourne, in Sydney they’re Westies
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:01 UTC Richard Grant said:Nope, Newcastle is the source of Bogans in Sydney.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:03 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:Bad Manners Jenny? They should give you a t-shirt.
It just started raining. Let the decimation begin!
249 Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:03 UTC Richard Wintle said:Hm. We had “weird bugs” in a bag of budgie food once… nasty little things about a quarter of an inch long. Looked like long thing beetles of some kind, but could have been true bugs I suppose.
Jenny – I feel your pain – we planted a whole lot of Morning Glories along our fence one year, all of which sprouted and were then systematically nipped off an inch or two above ground. An entomologist friend diagnosed cutworms; I suspect mice.
There are lots of snails in this part of the world, but not in our backyard strangely enough. Grove Snails, which I guess are the same as yours – pretty things.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:10 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:Mmmm. About as pretty as pubic lice.
Oddly enough, our morning glories are fine here. I guess there are too many cats about to have a mouse problem, and the slugs definitely aren’t interested. I planted them from a packet a few years ago and every year I harvest their seeds and plant them in the same place. It’s been fascinating watching the bred phenotype slowly unravel.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:39 UTC Richard Grant said:I had an idea for a slug/snail motion detector that actually fires slug pellets at the little bastards. Fun for all the family.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 18:42 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:Interestingly, there are pest control scientists who are working on tiny robots with knives than crawl through fields identify weeds using image analysis software. I swear I am not making this up.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:07 UTC Eva Amsen said:It sounds like the start of a horrible SF film.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:17 UTC Richard Grant said:Yes Jenny, They’re called Gurkhas.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:48 UTC Richard Grant said:Oh!
I’m sure there won’t news about slugs and snails, but I do want to point people towards Jenny’s other industry, which has gone all modern on us all of a sudden.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:52 UTC Cath Ennis said:I’m following Kyrsten’s suggestion from last year. Beer-filled containers strategically placed among the plants are doing a good job at decimating the local slug population.
I’ve also heard that crushed egg shells work (they’re too painful to slime over), but you’d have to put a ring around each plant, which seems a little too labour intensive.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:54 UTC Cath Ennis said:p.s. I did some murdering of my own yesterday. Specifically, I set fire to lots of dandelion clocks. Very satisfying, very effective at preventing seed dispersal while you dig the plants out, and well worth the blister that seems to have formed on my thumb.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 19:57 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:Oh, pyrotechnics. I am jealous because it seems a lot harder than mere poison. I haven’t had much luck with beer, simply because of the sheer number of the blighters. You’d need a Titanic-sized bowl.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 20:09 UTC Henry Gee said:Jenny – worry no longer, the Doctor is In.
The Spring after we moved to Cromer we had slugs like other people have the release of calcium from buses that never arrive at the station. The slugs were about three feet long (each), with enormous fangs like steak knives and great, big red eyes that would stare balefully at you in the dark. If you went into the garden at night you ran the risk of being surrounded.
I used slug pellets, and these are OK, if you have the right sized catapult and can score a direct hit between the eyes, but the trick is to use far fewer than you would think – the unused pellets wash into the soil, and apparently is no good at all to the soil biota.
Intensive research at the Maison Des Girrafes Horticultural Research Station (a.k.a. the garden shed) has found three good solutions.
1) Coffee grounds. The caffeine in real coffee is lethal to all marauding molluscs. Surround your sensitive plants with a cordon of grounds, or, as I do, dilute the coffee grounds in your watering can when you water the plants.
2) Gravel. Slugs and snails hate slithering over gravel – I plant anything sensitive in pots or large containers on a gravel bed.
3) Frogs. If you haven’t done so already, dig yourself a wildlife pond in your garden. Make it a decent size: six foot by three is a minimum, and ensure it’s at least three feet deep at one end to encourage water circulation (so you won’t need fiddly electric pumps). Use the earth as topsoil or soil conditioner. Line the hole with heavy-duty black polythene, fill up with the hose pipe and leave nature do the rest. Pretty soon the pond will attract all kinds of entertaining wildlife, and hopefully, next spring, you’ll have spawn. Once the local amphibia have discovered your pond, they’ll keep coming back. A couple of frogs are all you need to clear a garden of slugs.
With ponds, the bigger the better. Until this year we had one pond of the dimensions I’ve described. I’ve just dug another pond next to it that’s double the area and half again as deep. Animals in ponds tend to assume a size commensurate with their habitat – the tadpoles in the small pond are regular-sized specimens, but those I introduced to the big pond are as big as small nucelar submarines.
Digging a pond is good for the environment: more wildlife ponds are getting filled in than dug anew, and frogs need them for breeding. Given the worldwide decline in amphibian populations, it’s another way to Save The Planet as well as creating an exciting feature in your garden and encouraging an effective way to rid your garden of pests.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 20:31 UTC Henry Gee said:Oh yes, you also need to rescue some chickens. Since we’ve been keeping chickens the numbers of pests in the garden has declined to virtually nil – and the soil is so rich in nitrogen, phosphates and earthworms that we can grow practically anything it.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 20:54 UTC Cath Ennis said:But do you have a duck island?
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 21:03 UTC Henry Gee said:I might, if I had ducks.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 21:25 UTC Kristi Vogel said:ensure it’s at least three feet deep at one end to encourage water circulation
AHHAHAAHAHA! I’d be lucky to be able to dig down 3 inches in most of my backyard, without incurring transient soft tissue damage in my hands. No ponds for me, or for the neighborhood toads. :-(
Here’s a geological explanation to give you some idea of the gardening challenges I face. If you scroll down to Figure 4, note that I live on the Edwards limestone outcrop, or “recharge zone”. And out crops is exactly what it does. Raised beds are the best option for vegetable and herb gardening, and then the rest of the plants have to be drought-tolerant and like shallow alkaline soil.
Before I moved to the Clapham area with my London flatmates, we lived in a terraced house in Tooting. The cat could only visit yards in the terraced block, and yet one summer she kept bringing small frogs into the flat. We had no idea where she was finding frogs, until one day, my flatmate was talking to an elderly neighbor, who mentioned that he’d recently won a gardening contest. “The prize was a group of 50 frogs for me backyard pond”, the old man said, “but I only have three left. Can’t for the life of me figure out what happened to ’em”.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 22:05 UTC Richard Grant said:Well, I’ve coated the legs of the rack containing the marigolds, and the rims of the strawberry pots_, with a mix of petroleum jelly and red diesel (the people who had this house previously must have been very naughty). According to Cooch Windgrass, this should do the trick.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 22:06 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:Henry, you are my hero. There are lots of ponds around here, and a good number of frogs. Our cat kills a lot of them, actually. But I’d like a pond anyway — maybe this is the year we finally do it.
There is a local hedgehog about the size of a lorry that comes crashing through the underbrush of our back garden on occasion (why are hedgehogs so loud?), but I don’t think he’s pulling his weight. Interestingly, on that garden website I cite in my post, it’s claimed that “an investigation…found that hedgehogs could eat up to 200 slugs that had eaten [slug] pellets, in one night, with no ill effects.”
Maybe I should get one on retainer.
Date: Monday, 25 May 2009 – 22:07 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:Richard, what is ‘red diesel’? Sounds like a British expression I ought to know. It’s not related to that weird stuff described in Phil Ball’s novel, is it?
Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 06:39 UTC Richard Grant said:It’s diesel that’s taxed at a lower rate than diesel for road vehicles. So for heating, or agricultural use. There’s a red dye put in it so HM Customs can test your diesel car when you go to an agricultural show and make sure you’re not cheating on paying tax.
Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 06:49 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:How very British.
I am happy to report that despite the heavy rains and a Glastonbury-sized population of gastropods arriving in our garden for the occasion, everything is still alive and untouched!
Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 07:00 UTC Richard Grant said:According to El Wiki, other countries do similar things.
I can’t see any Gastropoda near my strawbs or marigolds. So far, so good. I think you must have the Rotherhithe Division.
Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 09:37 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:As another Henry (almost) said:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 09:50 UTC Richard Grant said:Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility,
But when the blast of slugs blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the chicken:
Stiffen the sinews, sprinkle the pellets,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage.
Is this a slug I see before me, its slime towards my marigolds?
Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 10:06 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:No, it is the East, and metaldehyde is the Sun.
Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 10:47 UTC Richard Grant said:Slug, what’s here? Poison? Drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after?
Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 10:58 UTC Henry Gee said:But soft – what slug on yonder marigold breaks?
Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 11:13 UTC Jennifer Rohn said: Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 11:33 UTC Richard Grant said: Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 11:56 UTC Heather Etchevers said:I know you are expecting me to chip in here, but you all said it so much better and sooner. I’ve settled for copper sulfate. I don’t know what it will do to the earthworms, though.
Along the lines of coffee grounds (for which Nespresso capsules are useless) I’ve been told that circles of ash are helpful as well. If you have a working fireplace and the desire to use it, which I don’t.
There are bits and pieces of my plantations left after yesterday’s hail. I am pleased to learn I don’t have to worry so much about the tomatoes.
Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 12:14 UTC Heather Etchevers said:I know you are expecting me to chip in here, but you all said it so much better and sooner. I’ve settled for copper sulfate. I don’t know what it will do to the earthworms, though.
Along the lines of coffee grounds (for which Nespresso capsules are useless) I’ve been told that circles of ash are helpful as well. If you have a working fireplace and the desire to use it, which I don’t.
There are bits and pieces of my plantations left after yesterday’s hail. I am pleased to learn I don’t have to worry so much about the tomatoes.
Date: Tuesday, 26 May 2009 – 13:34 UTC Jennifer Rohn said:I always wonder how people who use coffee grounds for pest control manage to get enough of it. I really like the idea of it, but I guess you’d need to cultivate a relationship with your local café and arrange to pick up their spent stuff.
Thanks to the wonder of BBEdit Find/replace and grep…
Wow, that’s great. Thanks, Richard.
The thing about the beer…one feta cheese container would hold about 15 drowned snails. I don’t know if there is enough free ground space in my garden to contain all the tubs you’d need to control the population – our garden is pretty big, and there are a lot of slugs. It’s also a lot of beer, going to waste. There is also the question of aesthetics.
Not to mention the entirely new problem of fending off the crowds after your local pub is closing and word spreads out that there’s plenty of free beer in your garden!
(and no, by then most of them will be unlikely to care about the snail corpses floating in the containers anyway, so you can’t count on that as a potential deterrent)
Richard> oh thank thee for the Shakespearian qoutes :)
Jenny> ahh… I see. You have too many slugs. Than I would go for the hedgehog idea. sounded very nice. you need to keep two then? And then maybe get baby hedgehogs in the spring = more slug eating nice animals :)
Nice to meet you last night, Cristian :)
Åsa, you’re welcome!
I’m glad to report that the red diesel (kerosene should work just as well)/vaseline method seems to be working. Not a gastropod in sight since the weekend. Having said that, I have instructed the staff to keep the coffee grounds for anti-Gastropoda warfare.
Ooh! ooh!
‘the staff?’ I’d threaten to buy instant except we can’t stand it…
Out, damned slime! out, I say! One: two: why, then, ‘tis time to do’t. The beer is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a gardener, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our metaldehyde to account? —Yet who would have thought the old slug to have had so much slime in him?
To nuke, or not to nuke: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slimes and razings of outrageous bastards,
Or to take arms against a sea of snails,
And by opposing possibly poison thy feline friend?
Sorry for the double post, but I had thought I had only made one, immediately after the quote that just precedes, “Arise, fair thrush and kill the envious snail.”
There are more gastropods on earth than were dreamt of in my philosophy at 12:14 UTC, which was 2:14 am in Toulouse.
Ha ha. How about we give an infinite amount of gastropods some slug-proof typewriters and see how they get on?
I think someone’s already tried that
Sorry Heather — I could have edited the double post out, but that’s an Editorial matter, not a Technical one.
cough
OK, I missed it when I reformatted the saved info. Sorry.
Truth be told, I am a little bit disappointed how easily the slugs gave in. I was sort of spoiling for a more protracted battle of Good vs Evil.
I can mail you some moth eggs. YEARS of Good vs Evil battling.
They’re regrouping. Don’t let your guard down.
All this rain will have washed the poison away. Be prepared for the Counterforce.
Last night I dreamed about Alan Titchmarsh. Should I be nervous?
I think your dream about Alan Titchmarsh might make me nervous, depending what he was doing.
Don’t be nervous until Alan Titchmarsh starts dreaming about you…
In the dream, he was pruning my hedges.
better than hedging your prunes.
Actually, didn’t someone mention Titchmarsh on Tuesday evening at Waterstones?
Update: my lettuce and rocket (that’s arugula, to all my American readers) have sprouted next to two neat rows of dead slugs. Hoozah!
’Rah!
I might do the experiment next week with coffee grounds.
There were grove snails all over the train platform yesterday morning. I still like them, although I couldn’t be bothered rescuing them all and chucking them back in the bushes.
Cutworms and June Bug larvae, however… gah. Can’t dig up a shovel of dirt in the backyard without coming across one or the other. Yuck.
Good eating on them suckers.
Says the guy who lived in Australia for 3 years.
I sprayed my roses for the first time ever. Something really scary-smelling whose odor wouldn’t wash off my fingers. Felt bad, but the roses are now bug-free and glorious. I can get used to this whole pesticide thing, I find.
Ooh. We have legions (squadrons? Divisions?) of blackfly over in 5HL. What did you use?
I sprayed my roses for the first time ever.
fnar fnar
sorry. Cat owner humour.
two neat rows of dead slugs
Grind ’em up and dig them into your flower beds. Good fertilizer, that.
They are starting to stink, so that might not be a bad idea.
p.s. Bought my first sprinkler. Does this make me middle-class?
No. It makes you lazy, or wasteful, or something. ;)
It’s being from Ohio. We love grass. None of this British pave-over-your-garden-and-call-it-a-yard malarkey.
Our neighbours have put down astroturf.
Certain members of my family think this is a good thing. I run screaming from the thought.
Gah. My next-door neighbour is currently building a wood deck in his backyard… that is the size of the backyard. From fence to shining fence, as far as the eye can see.
Folks in this town (i.e., downtown Toronto) like paving their front gardens, too – or better yet, turning them into parking spots.
@RPG – green astroturf, or some more exotic colour?
Edit: I am currently sitting in downtown Toronto. I don’t live here, thank goodness.
Green.
The other side neighbourly (students…) garden is a barren wasteland. It took ages to find a house with grass instead of concrete, paving, or decking all over. Certain people were very patient with me as I dismissed house after house, and there is a massive debt of thanks owed.
Apparently ‘they’ (whoever that is) were thinking of outlawing paved yards in London because you lose so much water that way. I think it’s a great idea to introduce more grass and dirt and trees into our inner cities – not just for water conservation but for mental health. Trees especially – even on the Euston Road you have big, beautiful trees and it makes a huge difference.