So yesterday I showed you my smallish (male?) toad relaxing in the pond. Well, last night I spotted some movement on the covered terrace, and there was a somewhat larger toad, which might be a female.
So we have two toads! How exciting is this!!! And toads eat the eggs and small specimens of slugs, so they are useful as well as exciting and – let’s face it – somewhat less-than-pretty.
The other day I also made another discovery in the old, disorganised compost pile in the less-frequented corner of the garden. Meet my new friend Hunter, a roman snail (helix pomatia):
I instantly moved him to the narrow border to the North-East of the covered terrace, since this is a favoured place for the slugs to burrow, and Roman snails are said to prey on the eggs of other gastropods. I’ll take any help I can get!
The Roman snail gives me a problem, though: I have to stop using slug pellets, as these kill ALL gastropods, including snails. So one is clearly not enough… So I went scavenging in the woods nearby and found a dozen more which I placed around the garden where I thought the conditions would be damp and cool enough for them to thrive. Some went into The Hedgerow, some at the back of The Ambitious Border and some in The Evening Border. (Putting a snail in The Sunny Border would just be unfair to the snail, I think…)
Now, Roman snails are protected in Denmark but you are allowed to collect them for private consumption, so I figure it’s probably also okay to collect them for your garden. After all, I’m sure the snails would rather be released in my garden than baked with garlic butter! (Though I do like snails…)
Besides my army of slug-fighting recruits I have also armed myself:
This came with the house when we bought it, and I guess it’s technically a hoe, since it’s meant to be used to weed the cracks between pawing stones, but I’ve begun to use it as a spear when I walk around the garden in the early morning or late evening when the slugs are out and about. It might be slightly brutal, cutting them in half with a spear-like instrument, but I’m convinced it’s probably more humane than poisoning them. The other day I took out 102 slugs just by strolling around the garden with this tool…
Yes… The War On Slugs is definitely on in the Flâneur Garden! By all means possible.
In other news, I’ve also collected some more wildlife for my garden; 12-15 tiny baby frogs out of hundreds that were crossing the road a mile or so from here. Considering that several hundreds of them had already been run over by cars I think that it was okay to collect a few for The Puddles. Though of course their natural instinct when they have metamorphosed from tadpoles to frogs is to wander away from the pond they hatched in – hence the massacre on the road – so they quickly abandoned The Puddles, but maybe they will be back. Fingers crossed! After all, they might not eat slugs, but I wouldn’t mind if they made a dent in our mosquito population!
How wonderful to find all the wildlife. Wish we had these mighty slug eaters. Instead I will have to go after some of them myself although the garden has been dry. The Japanese beetles were first and once under control without chemicals I will work on the slugs…hope I don’t find 102 though…ick
My record is 179 in an hour one evening the first year we had the garden… Mind you, I am fighting a loosing battle, since I think I’m the only one around here who is making an effort to get rid of the slugs. Still, I will do my best! (And I have help from the native wildlife, I hope, so we can at least make a dent in this invasive population of slugs.)
I’m very impressed with your efforts to rid your garden of the slugs. I can’t imagine going around spearing them. Yuk! But, you’re right – it’s much more humane than poisoning them. I hope your Roman snails get fat and happy eating them, too. And that all the frogs return to lay their eggs in the Puddles.
I know some people go around with scissors, cutting them in half… That’s a bit too close for me; I prefer having my 5′ handle and just stabbing them!
And we’ll see how crowded The Puddles get come spring… I’m not sure they’re large enough to work as mating grounds, but you never know!
OMG, and I think I’ve had a slug problem this summer! I maybe see two or three when I stroll around the garden in the morning — but 102 in one outing! Good luck in your war against the slugs.
I’d literally kill to see only two or three slugs in the garden (though I only kill slugs)… As I mentioned in a comment above, my record is 179 in one hour (I remember the number since it’s also the number of members in the Danish parliament), and I’m quite sure these outings only make small dents in the population.
That’s an impressive number of slugs removed. You do paint an amusing image of you wandering around spearing slugs. I feel I should be out there doing the same but I’m just so busy at the moment that I guess I’ve given in.
I just need to remember to bring the spear/hoe whenever I go outside so it’s there whenever I see a slug. (Which is OFTEN!)
It did seem, though, that when I left the garden on Sunday I didn’t see quite as many slugs as when I arrived up there the week before, so it does make some difference. I just need to do it every time I’m up there. Every morning, every evening.