Having repelled the slugs from my kitchen, it seemed time in 2007 to turn my attention the devastation they habitually cause in my garden. Who can forget the grisly sunflower massacre of 2001? Not me! So under these auspices I bought some slug pellets to prevent my friends, the slugs, eating anything with tasty leaves and pretty flowers.
Now, these slug pellets claim to be safe for the environment (so long as you don't include the aggravation their intense blue-ness causes to the eye). The packaging claims that "there is no need to clear up slug carcasses, as they will crawl away to a secluded spot to die". This is one of the most impressive boasts I have ever heard. It is also a lie.
My paving stones are now peppered with what I can only describe as baked-on moustaches made of beef jerky. Perhaps I do not provide the necessary "secluded spot". If you have any suggestions on the construction of the mooted "slug chill-out slash death zone", do let me know.
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9 comments:
Put a cardboard box on its side within easy slithering distance of the pellets. Inside the box, put tiny hospital beds and slug mannequins in nurses' uniforms so it looks like a triage unit.
Tiny clipboards and charts are optional.
The ideal solution for slug decimation is getting a pet chicken for your garden.
Anik, yes yes gold star 20/20 etc.
Ali, shame on you for harvesting one of Britain's most treasured national resources.
Mizufae, I have been responsible for the deaths of probably thousands of chickens. There is no way I am giving them an opening to revenge.
M, what is secluded about a paving stone? It is a wind-blasted open vista to the dying slug.
Are the manufacturers trying to claim that there is some sort of fabled great slug burial ground that all slugs go to to die? For so long explorers have sought it to harvest the rich supply of slug ivory it can offer, but none have returned to tell the tale.
Ah well, if chickens aren't your thing, try hedgehogs. These remarkable fast four-legged friends are a slug's nemesis. They can be encouraged with cat food (although this also tends to attract cats as well for some reason which is particularly odd, given that my cat never touched the stuff when it was in the kitchen).
Guys guys! The war is over! Your side lost! I am only accepting architectural plans for my slug chill out slash death zone. Stop trying to make me install a hippy in my back yard or, in the case of toby haynes, place rotting meat there in order to please the local rats.
You could construct some sort of beer trap using a small bucket or something which would make disposing of their corpses easier at least. I'm not sure what you'd do about the stray tramps or students it might attract though.
I too vote beer traps. I think (as I recall) you bury jam-jars in the ground so that the lip is just protruding, then pour a little beer in. The slugs smell it, race for it, and fall in to their slimy beery deaths.
Then you have to dig out the jar every so often. I would probably stuff it straight into the bottle bank dead slugs and all, and use a different jar next time. You might have to eat a lot of marmalade.
I can't think of a better chill-out death zone than a beer bath you can't get out of.
Build a little tiki hut around a saucer of beer and put an open carton of saltines for those that would rather burn out than fade away. Put little speakers and play "Tequila Sunrise" all night long.
The poor bastards ...
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