Saturday 31 July 2010

Slugs and snails and ..... frogs



When we came back from our break and had the front door open to unpack the car - this chap let himself in.  I suspect he lives pretty near the front door as he often leaves a tiny present on the doorstep.  We have quite a lot of frogs and toads in our garden which is pretty surprising as I don't have any areas which don't get fettled by me at one time or another (no peace for the wicked); also I don't have any water in the garden, unless you count the bird bath!  Nevertheless, as I said, I'm pleased to say our friendly slug eaters live here.  We also see the scat of a hedgehog now and again who visits fairly regularly and must do his bit.  I still suffer pretty badly from slugs and last week I found my first snail!  To add insult to injury it was a huge one with brown and orange striped shell.  I do use organic pellets without which the garden wouldn't stand a chance.  I've reduced the population dramatically from that which I inherited in the football pitch outside the back door when we bought the house three years ago.

2 comments:

  1. Beer in plastic cups (sunk in the soil)is pretty useful at getting rid of slugs.

    Like yourself I also use organic pellets. Someone told me they affect hedgehogs though, and made me re-think about the pellets, but on reading an article on this web page:

    http://www.wildlife-web.org.uk/hedgehog/facts/dangers.html

    it says it would take 40-50 times as much to kill a hedgehog than a slug.

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  2. I have tried beer traps and they do collect a load of slugs but I think they didn't deal with the amount I inherited. The pellets have knocked 'em back quite a lot in two years and things are now doable. Think I'll do a post on pellets - thanks for the prompt.

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