Public Enemy Number One

I found some secateurs within the potting shed and returned to the table outside. In front of me lay the creature, still within the pot I had placed it in and still very much alive. I knew what I must do. Although every instinct within me was screaming at me to do otherwise, I reached down and snipped it in half. Instantly its intestines burst from both ends, its slimy entrails hanging loose from its front half which I watched in horror squirming for the next ten minutes as it sought without success to escape from the pot. I decided I had to stay with it during its death throes rather than callously leaving to get a cup of tea. It was an ordeal but I knew which end of the secateurs I preferred to be on.

If you have reached this paragraph without calling the RSPCA, thank you. It may or may not make my actions seem slightly less barbarous if I explain that the creature in question was a slug, the sworn enemy of all humankind but particularly gardeners. Slugs take great but silent pleasure in devouring the food that we grow whilst ignoring the luscious weeds growing nearby. They are trained saboteurs, coming out from their hiding places at night to attack the cabbages.  They are particularly devastating when they get into our greenhouses and munch their way through the young seedlings which never recover. The War on Drugs is a vicar’s tea party compared to the War on Slugs.  Their brothers-in-arms, the snails, employ similar tactics. Snails generally get a better press than slugs, perhaps due to the beautiful spiral patterns on their shells, but don’t be fooled. Underneath they’re just slugs.

Believe me, I tried many deterrence and dispatch techniques before resorting to the secateurs. Egg shells were carefully collected from the kitchen, washed, crushed and scattered around all the brassica veg. When this didn’t work wool was carefully wrapped around each individual cabbage, cauliflower, kale plant, brussels sprout plant and broccoli plant. A bag of expensive organic wool-based slug pellets didn’t go very far. I’ve tried half-burying a plant pot filled with porridge oats to create a slug-hotel where I could find them hanging out (but they never checked in), and have laid several slug-traps of jam jars filled with yeasty water which sadly caught more mice than slugs.

Now I simply keep a sharp look out for the critters and pop them into a old putty pot whenever they show themselves. Rain does bring them out of their hidey-holes, as does darkness. I am sometimes to be found on patrol after dusk with a head-torch, filling my pot with slimy beings. Once captured, the question of course is how to dispose of them with the minimum of cruelty and ickiness. Our chickens seem to like the snails but turn their beaks up at slugs. Flinging them out into the field beyond is unsatisfactory as they are bound to return with a renewed vengeance and a mean appetite. I don’t want to dissolve them in salt, a horrible death. So my modus operandi until recently has been to throw them into the duck pond to drown which seemed perfect until a few of their bloated corpses started rising to the surface in a somewhat unsightly manner. 

So it was in desperation that I was forced to reach for the secateurs, but my belief that it would be a quick death proved ill-founded. On the third slug however I tried snipping it much closer to the head and this seemed to kill it instantly. It still oozed its internal organs all over the place, causing queasiness and leaving another disposal problem.

If you, dear reader, are chuckling to yourself thinking, why doesn’t he simply do “X” like every other gardener then please lead me out of my quandary and tell me what “X” is in the comment box below!