-I kill slugs, therefore I am
I’m sure this is what Descartes meant to write, right?
The fearsome hunter and his weapon
The death-toll last night ended at 83 slugs that will no longer prey on my dahlias. During spring we didn’t really see many slugs, probably due to the dry weather, but the wet and – to be polite – temperate summer has brought them out in droves.Like last year. And the year before.
Some of the other animals that eat our plants and flowers are accepted and even loved; The Flâneur Husband has repeatedly said about the deer that “they were here before us”, indicating that we just have to accept and adapt. This attitude doesn’t really transfer to slugs, though… Perhaps because they’re not as cute? Maybe it would all be different if Disney made a cute movie about a mother-less slug that grew up having to fend for itself, avoiding pellets and angry flâneur gardeners with sharp hoes? I somehow doubt it, though.
No, the slugs must die. If not all of them, then as many as possible. I could go all nationalistic and say that the Iberian slug is an invasive species and we need to protect our local flora and fauna by doing our best to eradicate it or at least keep it at bay, but the truth is they eat my dahlias and they’re just gross. DIE, I said.
And they’re devious little monsters… This was my view last night as I was sitting on the covered terrace with a cup of coffee. (Okay, it was a glass of Chardonnay…)
You don’t see it? Well, how about this?
You see, they don’t just stay on the ground, oh no. That would make it too easy to hunt them down. No, they think nothing of climbing shrubs and trees when it takes their fancy!
Pesky little bastards… DIE, I said!
83 slugs in one day?? With numbers like that, I can understand why you are on such a mission to wipe them from the fac of the earth. We have leopard slugs here, which are nasty, but nothing in my garden is destroyed by them, and I feel fortunate. My mother has more of a problem with them than I do, and she leaves a saucer of beer out every night to trap and drown the evil, slimy critters. She assures me that she oly uses cheap beer, so no good beer is wasted in her pursuit of slug eradication.
We have a few pretty harmless native slugs (small grey things), but the majority of our slugs are the invasive Iberian slug that appeared in Denmark some time in the 1990′s. They are large (3-5″ long) and they developed to survive in a much dryer climate than here in Northern Europe, so with the extra moisture they are multiplying at an amazing rate. And while they don’t eat EVERYTHING, they are definitely not picky eaters and will eat most perennials and annuals that come their way.
I am with you…die slugs…but with the dry weather there are less of them but they are still there…
I don’t think it’s realistic that we ever get rid of the Iberian slugs here, and they are really the main problem so I just have to live with it and accept that slug-killing is an important part of gardening in Denmark. -Especially during a wet summer like this year.
I was away for a few days visiting family and came back to find a whole planter full of salad leaves hoovered up. Like the idea of Disney trying to make slugs vulnerable and cute but I don’t think even Disney could manage that one.
Hey; Disney tacked on a Happy Ending to The Little Mermaid… They can do many things you wouldn’t believe! (Because of course The Little Mermaid ends unhappily and she dies alone, but Disney somehow chose to ignore that fact.)