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put salt on their tails (was icky nasty crawly things)

updated sun 21 sep 03

 

Janet Kaiser on sun 21 sep 03


If salt was something you could have around clay without it
adversely affecting your pots, it would be the answer, Wayne. I
suppose you could try standing your box on a bed of salt? Or
sprinkling salt around and under various other places where they
have been snoozing through their days until you set up a five
star slug hotel for them...

The second best answer is to acquire something with a lid that
fits tighter or tightly... Obviously your cooler does not,
although they must really be big buggers if they lifted the lid
to pop in! You could try using an old disused fridge. It could
also double for keeping pots from drying out too fast in your
heat... An ideal damp box. Pots on a shelf at the top, clay at
the bottom, even use the compartments in the door for bits and
bobs... A fridge may take up a lot of room (especially your US
walk-in larder sized ones) but it is also easier on the hands...
Opening and closing "tight fitting" containers is hard work and a
hassle for those of us with various grip and hand problems.

A relatively new environmentally friendly way to rid yourself of
slugs and snails can be bought at garden centres or by mail
order. They are nymatodes or some such critters which enter into
the digestive system when the slugs browse (which is what slug
eating is called... better not mention snails :-). I think it
leads to a type of death by killer worms rather than the
chemically induced dehydration of slug pellets. Icky too, but
effective and it does not affect whatever eats the slug cadavers,
be that bird or beast.

Sincerely

Janet Kaiser - where GIANT slugs and snails are now frolicking
around in the rain, following a lean time over the amazingly dry
summer. Even the gulls and crows won't eat the
yellow-greeny-brown ones. Up to six inches long they are supposed
to be too bitter for even the most voracious, omnivorous beasts
of air, land or sea, although who found that out and how...? Ick
indeed!

*** IN REPLY TO THE FOLLOWING MAIL:

>I reached into the giant styro cooler I found that I'm currently
using as a
>clay locker
>and carved out a good sized chunk of porcelain. Threw it down
on the
>table...
>only to find that it was covered in slugs! Giant, garden
variety grey
>slimy critters! How they got in there is beyond me.
*** THE MAIL FROM wayneinkeywest ENDS HERE ***
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