Kitchen Garden Forum

The Thrush numbers are up here and the snails have paid the price...not that i'm moaning.
I think the slugs here, will appear again, as soon as we get some rain....even the trees are looking drought stressed, from the very low water table.....

After lower numbers of snails for a few years, I have seen a huge increase in their numbers again this year in my garden.
Isn't it strange how these things come and go, and with no obvious pattern across the country!

... but it is probably no coincidence that our thrush numbers are down here.

alan refail wrote:http://www.slugwatch.co.uk/?page_id=21

That's put me right off my food, Alan!

It seems that to properly identify my slugs, I would have to have a much closer look at them.
I think I'll pass on that!

Though this has reminded me of a childhood prank my sons once played on their grandparents.
Do you remember when you could buy big bags of Fruit Gums that were actually fruit shaped?
Remember the black one that was actually very slug-like in appearance?
My parents were visiting one weekend and the boys put one of those sweets on the ground outside. When they arrived the boys timed it perfectly to go, " Ooh, look at that big fat slug", before one grabbed it and ate it!
The grandparents were suitably fooled and horrified

OMG, I feel sick now!

I'm not even clicking on that link Alan. I've made that mistake before with you!

I found a big yellow bugger on the shed floor this morning I think it must have been on the bottom of my boots but they are moon boots how far has the slugs spread

I did a torchlight raid on our rain soaked patio last night. Picked up 30 slugs, mostly of the big brown Spanish variety. Couldn't believe where they had all come from considering in the past couple of weeks I've sent so many of them winging over our back garden fence into a nettle patch.

Tell me seriously, do they have having a homing instinct? I'm now thinking I need to kill them rather than relocate them but HOW DO IT DO IT HUMANELY.? A sharp knife might be instant but I really don't fancy this butchering route, so although this may have previously been discussed on here, can we have a recap please? Coward that I am I really prefer a method where I can drop them in something and walk away.

I fleetingly thought of flushing them down our toilet but knowing their tenacity I had a horror of visiting the downstairs loo this morning and discovering all 30 of them had painstakingly crawled back up the sewage pipe and were all cosily nestling around the inner pedestal rim! No thank you !

Primrose wrote: ...
I fleetingly thought of flushing them down our toilet but knowing their tenacity I had a horror of visiting the downstairs loo this morning and discovering all 30 of them had painstakingly crawled back up the sewage pipe and were all cosily nestling around the inner pedestal rim! No thank you !

OMG, I don't know whether to laugh or scream at that the thought of that scenario

I'm afraid I tend to use a sharp edge of some kind. Despite being vegetarian, I can despach slugs and snails.

Picked this up on the internet today. One way of getting rid of your garden slug collection? I can,t help wondering what the RHSt do with them all after they've identified them. Perhaps they have a large herd of ducks hidden away somewhere who will make quick work of them!

"Gardeners are being called upon to chart the rise of foreign slugs.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) wants volunteers to collect specimens and post them to their experts to research slug diversity.
Those chosen to help will receive training before being asked to walk the same route through their gardens after dark for 30 minutes collecting and trying to identify slugs each time they do so. They will then post live samples in breathable boxes provided by the RHS."'