Death to all slugs!

Almost May and the seeds I scattered in my back yard a week or so ago are… (wait for it…drum roll… big taddah)…. ARE THROUGH!

Yes, despite what is described by the weatherman (who these days seem to be mainly women) as being unseasonably cold each tiny seed has struggled on, popping its head above the surface to greet the world with a smile and a song. Mind you, it doesn’t seemed to have stopped the slugs and I was rather hoping that the reported unseasonable cold would have wiped the scourge of slugs and snails from the face of the planet.

No such good fortune I’m afraid.

So once again the big value tub of slug pellets, that I seem to have been using for about the last five years, has been taken out of the shed and into battle. I’m not really keen on the brilliant blue hue that speckles the soil of my garden, but it’s preferable to forming a ‘slug patrol’ like the more organic gardeners. I once sunk plastic bottles containing beer into the soil which – for a while – provide the slugs with an alcoholic paradise swimming pool. They must have really enjoyed the end of their sluggy lives, but it was a horribly messy business when cleaning-out time came around.

I’ve often wondered what slugs are for. Oh, forget the ecological balance and food for thrushes and frogs. Just what are slugs really for? What use are they? At least with snails you get the satisfaction of the crunch of the shell when you step on one and some misguided across-the-channel peoples even treat them as a foodstuff.

Not slugs though. Slugs seem to have no purpose at all; they are basically snails without shells. If they had any purpose it would be as an extremely effective slime making machine. If you like slimy things, slugs are probably right at the top of your favourites list; along with past-their-best mushrooms and pond weed. If you're not a fan of slimy though, you’ll understand exactly what I’m on about. I hate the slime-covered bodies that the slug pellets leave behind, deathly piles of coalescing goo.

There’s no doubt that slugs are good at eating things; they eat all kinds of stuff and some can eat more than their body weight every day. I once left a verdant garden tucked up for the night and in the morning came down to a devastated desert of stripped and vanished plants. Yes, the slugs had planned and then set in motion a slug offensive like no other before or since.

They may look all mushy and soft, leaving a nice shiny skid mark on the path when you squish them with your foot, but slugs have some pretty impressive weapons to help them eat. These weapons include a sharp jaw and mouth, and a ribbon-like radula with thousands of teeth inside the sluggy mouth. It’s not just plants that they chomp through either. Slugs enjoy a varied diet including animal droppings, carrion, centipedes, fungi, algae, insects, worms, lichen, and even other slugs… nasty little critters.

Anyway they’re back and I declare war. Death to all slugs!