Author Topic: F'kin slugs  (Read 3948 times)

Nightfly

F'kin slugs
« on: 08 June, 2011, 04:16:45 pm »
Opened the blinds in the lounge looking out onto the garden at 6:20am this morning, nearly choking on my toast in the process. In the nearest flower bed there was what appeared to be a huge fucking slug literally humping one of my prized strawberries which I have been nurturing and which must have ripened during the night which I was looking foward to having for breakfast. So I tor open the door and lept toward the strawberry patch on the edge of the patio, lifted up the netting which the sliming git slug had manged to crawl through and removed it from the remains of the huge strawberry which wasn't much. Ugghhhhh! Fuck you slug!!!! Then lobbed it onto the rubbish pile at the end of the garden and stamped on it. I hate slugs. Caught two snails that had tried and failed to get through the netting which was too small for their shells to pass through. Only found 3 other strawberries that the slugs had got to which is pretty good really. Nice juicy ripe ones though.

Does anyone else have problems with thieving robbing bastard slugs? What is the point of slugs?

Charlotte

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Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #1 on: 08 June, 2011, 04:25:44 pm »
At the same time, somewhere in a parallel universe, there might be an angry gastropod, asking exactly the same questions about you, Nightfly...

:D
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Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #2 on: 08 June, 2011, 04:39:54 pm »
<Aliens cliché mode = ON>

Dust off and nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure...

<Aliens cliché mode = OFF>
"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." ~ Freidrich Neitzsche

Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #3 on: 08 June, 2011, 05:16:29 pm »
I like to drown the slimey bastards in stale beer traps homemade from 2 litre plastic drinks bottles cut in half and the top bit inverted. At least they drown happy  :D

Riggers

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Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #4 on: 08 June, 2011, 05:18:12 pm »
… sooooooooooooooo, you hold their heads under until they stop thrashing?
Certainly never seen cycling south of Sussex

Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #5 on: 08 June, 2011, 05:31:22 pm »
Apparently Leopard slugs eat other slugs. 
Move Faster and Bake Things

rogerzilla

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Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #6 on: 08 June, 2011, 05:44:24 pm »
So, creationists...

Why did Noah put slugs and wasps into the Ark?
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

Regulator

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Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #7 on: 08 June, 2011, 08:41:05 pm »
So, creationists...

Why did Noah put slugs and wasps into the Ark?

Dunno about slugs - but wasps predate many insect pests and are a form of biocontrol.  We'd be fairly buggered without them.
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I completely agree with Reg.

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Steve Kish

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Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #8 on: 08 June, 2011, 09:18:39 pm »
I've heard rumours about that big strawberry being a tart (geddit? ;)) ... in which case, she probably told the slug that he could have his wicked way for a tenner! :thumbsup:
Old enough to know better!

Jaded

  • The Codfather
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Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #9 on: 09 June, 2011, 12:15:12 am »
Does anyone else have problems with thieving robbing bastard slugs? What is the point of slugs?

Our slugs have never stolen from us.

However they have helped deal with a burglary, and postcoding some bike frames.
It is simpler than it looks.

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #10 on: 09 June, 2011, 12:15:54 am »
So, creationists...

Why did Noah put slugs and wasps into the Ark?

Dunno about slugs - but wasps predate many insect pests and are a form of biocontrol.  We'd be fairly buggered without them.

With them, or without them. I guess that's a lifestyle choice.   ;D
It is simpler than it looks.

Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #11 on: 11 June, 2011, 08:12:46 pm »
Second about the wasps - don't need to net brassicas, the wasps will be around feasting on the eggs.

If you can attract frogs into your garden ie anywhere cool and damp you'll find them romping around expeditiously at nightfall to deal with any mollusc problem.  If I do find them I'll often get them onto a sheet of paper and put a ring of salt around them - in fact it's a bit of a scientific experiment I've had going for a few years now, I write up which way they go trying to escape, how long before they terminally insalinate themselves, how long writhing around etc, and one day I hope to publish the results - you don't have to be a genuine scientist to be allowed to state the bleeding obvious, do you? - "Landbound molluscs display striking similarities to hominids when trying to escape from tricky situations".  And if you ever thought slugs are slow, try putting the newspaper on top of a hot stove - you'll find they are capable of a surprising turn of speed.

Biggsy

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Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #12 on: 15 June, 2011, 06:02:18 pm »
The positive point of slugs is to eat dead plants, and be food for other animals.

Slug - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Quote
Apophallation is a commonly seen practice among many slugs. In apophallating species, the penis curls like a corkscrew and during mating often becomes entangled in the mate's genitalia. Apophallation allows the slugs to separate themselves by one or both of the slugs chewing off the other's penis. Once its penis has been removed, the slug is still able to mate using only the female parts of its reproductive system.

Bloody hell.
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Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #13 on: 15 June, 2011, 06:12:17 pm »
My other half is a big fan of the liberal use slug pellets. Occasionally they get past the washing and cooking and actually end up on my dinner plate trapped in a spinach leaf.

I was drinking on a friends balcony (on the second floor, central London), they have a few herbs and tomato plants on it. I put my beer bottle down for a minute, and when I picked it up again, there was a slug crawling around the rim of the bottle.

Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #14 on: 15 June, 2011, 06:32:45 pm »
What is the point of slugs?

Grasshopper, the point of slugs is to teach us something very important: that when we grow vegetables organically for ourselves, we in fact do not. We grow them for the consumption of other inhabitants of the universe as well. We get a proportion of what we grow. If we're lucky :)

They seem to have taken a shinning to my spinnach beet more this year than previous ones.
Must be a good crop I guess!
Garry Broad

tiermat

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Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #15 on: 15 June, 2011, 06:58:21 pm »
I like to drown the slimey bastards in stale beer traps homemade from 2 litre plastic drinks bottles cut in half and the top bit inverted. At least they drown happy  :D

Please please please don't do that, or if you must, make sure that you enter the traps EVERY morning, as cute ickle hedgehogs WILL eat them, get really tipsy then wander out in the road (no doubt declaring their undying love for their best mate) and promptly get run over by the next car passing.
I feel like Captain Kirk, on a brand new planet every day, a little like King Kong on top of the Empire State

Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #16 on: 15 June, 2011, 08:54:18 pm »
I like to drown the slimey bastards in stale beer traps homemade from 2 litre plastic drinks bottles cut in half and the top bit inverted. At least they drown happy  :D

Please please please don't do that, or if you must, make sure that you enter the traps EVERY morning, as cute ickle hedgehogs WILL eat them, get really tipsy then wander out in the road (no doubt declaring their undying love for their best mate) and promptly get run over by the next car passing.

Mr spiky can't get in because the inverted top of the bottle seals it with only the small screw opening for the slugs to get in through facing downwards into the bottle. At one stage I did have a proper plastic version I bought but the drinks bottle ones are really just as good. Sadly I don't get hedgies in my garden because the boundaries are pretty hedgehog proof- I used to have a herd of free range guinea pigs so I sealed everything up pretty securely!

Tail End Charlie

Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #17 on: 15 June, 2011, 11:03:03 pm »
I used to use the plastic bottle method as described above, but unfortunately ground beetles get in and they are friends. Haven't figured out how to stop this. Rather than beer I used a mix of yeast, sugar and flour, it's the fermenting smell the slugs go for, rather than the alcohol.

Now I just hunt by torchlight and put them in salted water.

Re: F'kin slugs
« Reply #18 on: 18 June, 2011, 12:31:49 pm »
Nematodes , that be the way to be rid of them!

 ;D
Rich