Why I will never leave my wellies in the porch again

[Miranda]

I've just found a slug in one, tucked right in at the end. Think I'm going to be sick...

[sue1002]

Yuk:eek: I'm glad I keep mine indoors.

[Miranda]

Well, Little Miss Tidy, I shall be doing that from now on, too! ;) :)

[digger]

Ooooooo that's gross, a slug tried to slither under the back door last night but we caught it before it got in. I must say my muckboots are kept indoors

[sue1002]

We used to get lots coming in under the back door until I spread loads of salt outside the back door, Sasha's water bowl is behind the door and I think the slugs were after that.

[Miranda]

Not sure what it was after, Sue, but it may have been brought in inside a plant pot. It's certainly a bumper year for slugs, isn't it?

When I was a student, in the Olden Days, a group of us were looking for a house together. One place we looked at was an old red brick Victorian terraced and it had a brick archway over the front door. On this had been painted 'Slug Villas'. One of the reasons that we'd wanted to move from the last place was because of the slugs that used to get in. There were always trails on the carpets in the morning.

[sue1002]

in the Olden Days,

I remember them:D

Yes, it's certainly a year for slugs this year, when I take Sasha out in the mornings, the grass over the park is full of the big black ones, slithering all over the place, they are.

[Paul Narramore]

We even get them in our dining room. Or at least we see their silvery trails some mornings on the carpet. Presumably they can get through the tiniest of gaps.

[Maire]

Walking the kids to school one day in torrential rain and with leaky shoes I felt life couldn't getting any less glamourous-then I found a slug in the turned up and very wet hem of my jeans.
However my friend found one her in her hair..so she wins!

[digger]

Twice i have had the misfortune of standing on a slug and on each occasion i have ended up slipping and falling to the ground, i think this year the slugs are enjoying a wet and warm season that has increased their numbers greatly

[Miranda]

Maire, that's gross! How did the slug get into your friend's hair?!

Read this morning that slugs could become even more of a problem this autumn, once they've bred again. It's thought that numbers are up by over 50% - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/uk_and_roi/article2303151.ece

[Maire]

She was doing some work to the area under some bushes in her garden and it must've plopped off the bush into her hair. Screech!

[blackfingers]

Plenty of slugs here,they ate some of my veggies and flowers and when I go outside they are everywhere,even on the windowsills and the outside doors.I don't know what's worse-slugs or spiders as I'm on the constant war with both of them!

[sue1002]

When weeding earlier I thought I was picking up a big stone, once I realised it was soft and not hard it turned out to be a great big slug, it was a good two inches long and at least an inch in diameter, it was gruesome.

[blackfingers]

I don't know what's the best way to deal with them.Throwing them over the fence has no point as I can imagine my neighbours do the same.I don't fancy stepping on them as I'd have to clean the mess later.Is there any way to give them a ticket to heaven in a clean way without damaging the environment and seriously reduce their number?

[Maire]

My husband gave me some old copper pipe which I placed some snails next to. Their reaction was instant. As soon as they touched the pipe they flinched. They kept attempting but eventually gave up. I'm busy collecting any bits of copper I can find and intend to build barriers next year.

[Miranda]

She was doing some work to the area under some bushes in her garden and it must've plopped off the bush into her hair. Screech!

Oh, yech! Screech, indeed, and probably very loudly.

Something to remember with slugs is that they also move underground and can tunnel under the copper piping. I'm not sure what the answer is, really. Here's what David Attenborough has to say (on p.46) of Life in the Undergrowth: "One zoologist removed between ten and seventeen thousand slugs a year from his suburban garden for four years without making a significant reduction in their population". Sigh, makes you want to give up.

We have woods over the road and I sometimes stand at our gate and fling them, over-arm, like a bowler, into the undergrowth. I'm getting quite good at it :)

[Maire]

My garden backs onto woods and I too do a fair bit of lobbing-quite satisfying really.

[Miranda]

I wonder how long it would take to train slugs? I did some searching and found that there are actual scientific papers on this very subject. How will the gathered information be used, I wonder?