It's War!

Last night I donned the tin hat and armed with a torch went on the warpath. With everything growing like mad, I need to protect my plants from further damage so some action was needed.

First pass - just 10 snails and four slugs, it was still early in the evening and not quite dark yet. One even had the temerity to be munching away at my hosta, having by-passed the copper tape, egg-shells and other barriers and obviously preferring the added piquancy of the garlic flavoured Nasty Niff spray. Most of these were lobbed over the fence onto the road. I wonder what the dog walkers must think the following morning, at all these semi-crushed snails lying in the road. Either that or they'll make a tasty morsel for a passing fox or badger on night patrol.

Second foray - yielded a good quantity of slugs in the slug pub - lots of big juicy ones as well as the small ones - a slightly greenish/yellow mottled array. However, this time there was a troop of snails stampeding up the sides of the SFG having ignored the band of vaseline (ok, it probably needs frequent replacing to keep being effective) and heading for my newly planted French beans. Now I'm NOT having that, having already lost the previous eight, so I'm afraid I resorted to the good old blue pellets. Liberally sprinkled around the SFG and the two courgette plants which are losing their flowers to the hungry hoards.

The final foray this morning when I returned from my run - yielded about thirty to forty snails - some had been attracted to the blue pellets and most of them were picked from the foliage nearby. I didn't quite have the heart to dispatch them in the water barrel, so having collected them in a large flower pot I've just taken them over into the local park on a central island of vegetation surrounded by grass and gravel paths, so less chance of them finding their way back - either into my garden or someone else's. Again, a meal for a fox, badger or thrush. Better that than making a meal of my garden.