Never mind The Walking Dead or The Exorcist tonight I saw true horror slithering over paths and plot leaving trails of slime behind them!
Courgette plants in the veg plot, mulched lightly with grass clippings but besieged by slugs and snails.
Just as full dark is arriving, around 10:30 pm here at the moment, I head up to the chicken coop. I just like to make sure they’ve all gone to bed, OK. We had some new hens recently and, like most teenagers, they tend to be late to bed.
Sometimes the automatic door shuts one out so I rescue her and put her in through the back door. Then I open the nest box which is shut at tea-time to stop them sleeping in there. Chickens produce most of their droppings at night and I don’t want them sleeping in the nestbox as the eggs end up covered in muck.
I shone my torch around to check they’d plenty of food and water. They’re up earlier than me and like a good breakfast to start the day. That’s when I noticed some large brown slugs slime-ing their way around the run. Slugs are a high protein breakfast for the girls so not a problem, I thought.
For some reason I popped into the walled veg garden and shone the torch around. Just as you go in on the left there are a couple of courgettes which are lightly mulched with grass clippings. I’d noticed some slug damage on them and had scattered a few ferrous phosphate slug pellets around them this afternoon.
Tonight’s Horror Movie!
Tonight it was full horror movie time. Forget army ants, this was a monstrous army of snails and slugs ravaging everything in their path. They were nearly covering one of the courgettes. Some even appeared to be mating on there to add insult to injury.
All around they were gobbling up the pellets but there were far more enemies than little blue pills of death. Straight back down to the shed for more pellets and grabbed my camera – this is something you don’t see too often.. I hope!
Note the 3 big slugs heading for the plant and the nibbled courgette
Courgette swamped by dozens of snails and slugs
Great pictures,unbelievable amount of snails in one spot.I think i might take a torch up my allotment late at night and see where my 30 missing Lola Rossa went.
I think you might find some fat, happy, lettuce-fed snails having a party!
We have recently fixed a small, 3ft x 1ft raised bed at the front of the house, for a few cheerful flowers on our way in. Last night, there were more than 38 snails enjoying the new petunias in there, the most I’ve seen in a long time. As usual, Mr P won’t kill them, he takes them a walk to some waste land, I’m sure they are back the next day!
That wouldn’t surprise me – aren’t they supposed to return unless you move them 30 yards are something?