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Wednesday 12 June 2019

With snails the...

size of Fiat Puntos, I am just going up to the garden to do a little light extermination!  My newly planted sunflowers need all the help they can get.  The lack of their namesake i.e. sun isn’t going down too well leaving them at the mercy of the marauding beasties.  Loo rolls and baked and crushed eggshells only go so far.  On losing the first specimen I am now wise as to their MO, I ensure there aren’t any overhanging leaves to enable them to parachute in to fill their slippery faces.  In the past the husband blacked up, has under cover of darkness and armed with soft shoes and sledgehammer crept up and waged a counter attack.  We haven’t got to that sorry pass just yet!  when we lived near a busy-ish road I would carefully collect them and bowl them into the path of passing traffic.  Here If I attempted the same trick by the time a vehicle ventured down this sleepy lane the snails would have either been long gone or if they were misguided enough to sit and  await their fate would have grown to the size of 
4 x 4’s.


15 comments:

  1. It is indeed a dilemma. I too have giant snails and on the whole I don't like to 'hurt' them but they do munch all the veg I'm bravely trying to grow in this abysmal summer we're so far having. I tend to throw them into the hedge and I know everyone says they come back but I just can't kill them. Perhaps I'm afraid I'll come back as a snail in my next life! Let us know if you win the battle! x

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    1. Confession time: the thing is, normally I am the same, however a pair of snails having the sheer audacity to get it together right on the top step brought the beast out in me! Sad to say as I stepped on them, the thought was ‘At least they died happy!’ As if that wasn’t bad enough I am ashamed to say I put two snails into the feed trough for a swim. Madame Defarge like I watched, minus the knitting obv! One managed to get away, the other I discovered on the edge. I smartly returned it back into the water! Now Marksgran, I’m not proud of my actions, on walking away the qualms set in and after some thought I hooked him/her out and walking to the back wall I lobbed the mollusc over into the school. This morning on inspection the sunflower with loo roll and eggshell protection closest to the school had
      been eaten. Divine retribution some might say!?!

      LX

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    2. What we need is some dry hot weather. They don't do so well in hot sun! I suppose the sunflower would probably appreciate that too. Do you know any sun dances? x

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  2. I hope your weather takes a turn for the better, and sooner than later. I have never in my gardening life been plagued with snails, but beset by Japanese beetles is no better.

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    Replies
    1. Rain, rain and more rain. The weir just 75 metres away is in full flow. I hesitate to go and inspect the remaining sunflowers, as snails I am sure love the rain. This time last year on the coast we were experiencing flaming June!

      LX

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  3. With living in the Desert I don't have Snails but I did get some Looper Caterpillars that decimated my Herb Garden... they should have Minty breath! As for Snails, The Grandson, before he moved off on his own after turning 18, had Tropical Fish Aquariums and decided that Mystery Snails, which weren't SUPPOSED to be prolific Breeders, would be a good idea to keep the Tanks algae free. He bought some allegedly 'Rare' Blue ones. They bred like maniacs so I doubt they're Rare anymore just from how we've managed to expand their population! Now his little Sister and I are left with his Aquariums/Fish/Snails that he let her inherit when he moved out of State. I have an entire freakin' Tank full of Snails since I didn't have the Heart to toss them into the Garden and allow them to die a horrible death in 105+ degree heat! I'm such a soft touch!

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    Replies
    1. Oh dear... garlic butter comes to mind?

      LX

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  4. Any snails found here go on a flight over the hedge to next door's garden. They leave it more or less as a wilderness and my hope is that the snails will at least eat some of the weeds etc that come crawling under the fence to us!!

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    1. That made me laugh Frances.. ‘Ooh, you are a one!’ Only one problem I can see, the little blighters seem to have a homing setting and with your garden having a better class of grub, they will be back!

      LX

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    2. Pork pies on Christmas day? I’ve never heard the like! Once again it made me laugh!

      Memo to self... I must get out more...

      LX

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    3. It is a Leicestershire tradition.( Melton Mowbray pork pies? ) There are old photos of long queues outside Walkers ,( local butchers who made them,) just before Xmas.
      Some years ago a friend used to put nail varnish on snail shells before she chucked them over the fence to see if they were " homing snails" !! I must ask her what the result was. She hoped that the neighbours weren't watching her painting snail shells ( in her dressing gown I think she was!!)
      Blimey.....just looked out....there is sunshine !!!

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