Attack from a plague of snails of biblical proportions.
I am not sure why but this year we have more snails that I have seen here in the last 5 years and I would have thought with all the dry weather over winter it would not have been great snail breeding weather, I guess I was wrong.
Check out the below, this is how many snails we collected from the garden on day 1.
Since these photos were taken we have collected another 200 - 400 snails from our garden over a couple of days.
So rather than just think about how we can get rid of them (I have a plan for that) I first started thinking about what is this infestation telling me about our garden?
The ideas I came up with were that:
We need more lizards and frogs (our winter was quite cold and we have not seen as many frogs as normal)
We should be raising ducks, although I am not sure they could be controlled to just eat snails)
Our veggie garden is not the major food source (although they seem to be big fans of my seedlings) as we are seeing some damage but not complete devastation
We could be eating snails as a form of protein (I am not entirely joking about this )
We need to be more diligent and feed more of them to the chickens
We need to snail hunt on a regular basis to control the population
Our humid shade house is the perfect breeding ground for snails
So what am I going to do with over 500 snails? Well I am taking then to a wildlife centre.
For the last few weeks Hubby's parents have had a carpet python in their garden. Because it had not moved and we thought it was injured they called a wildlife carer. The wildlife carer came and confirmed that it had a broken back o took it away to be euthanasied. But at some stage during the conversation the wildlife carer told my in-laws how they were buying in snails to feed to all the lizards and that there was a snail shortage (yes because they are all at our place) and they were having to pay up to $1 per snail.
Ding ding ding! Show me the money!
So the plan is to take the snails to Brisbane (Hubby has to go anyway) so that the wildlife people can make good use of our excess and hopefully we can bring the pestilence and destruction to an end, well we should slow it down at least.
We are pretty sure they will be shocked at the number of snails we are delivering so it will be interesting to find out their reaction.
Do you have excessive snail numbers, or anything else, at your place?
Holly Molly, its a plague that even Moses would be proud of. Hugh on River Cottage (first series) cooked up his garden snails. Im sure it was something along the lines of butter, garlic, shallots.
ReplyDeleteI do the coffee ground thing in my beds and dont have an issue. Mind you, with raised beds that are 90cm high they have to be keen and engage high suction to get up the corrugated sides. I can just imagine them having to abseil back down when they discover the coffee.
DeleteI will let you know if we decide to cook any but I am not sure we will and will probabl just leave them for the lizards.
DeleteThat is amazing collection of snails that's for sure. Glad you are putting them to a good cause. Regards Kathy A, Brisbane
ReplyDeleteOh dear, yuk, yuk, I don't like snails, I can still remember the sickening "crunch" when my 2 year old brother used to put them in his mouth....groooooss ! I remember standing in the garden squealing and dry retching, until my Mum came and took him away, ( I know... full on drama queen at age 5) Ducks are awesome snail control as they seek them out, ( a friend had 2 in her big wild garden ) you would have to ask duck owners what the downside is.
ReplyDeleteI know an old gardener who puts sawdust around the seedlings, snails won't cross it apparently.... worth a try.
What great luck that you are able to help out the wildlife carers with a food supply, while getting rid of a problem.
Margaret sadly they are hiding everywhere but I am giving egg shells a go around my veggies.
DeleteAwesome to find someone who actually wants them! I have heard coffee grounds are good too.
ReplyDeleteAA I will try the coffee grounds if the egg shells do not work. For the most part the garden is doing ok and hopefully after this clean out we will have even less damage.
DeleteWow Fiona that's a lot of escargot...although I don't think people can eat the garden variety.... great news that lizards will be dining out on that lot .....I have snails here but hopefully not hordes !!The ones I see I am going to put salt on them...apparently that gets rid of them...didn't have luck with coffee grounds or sawdust. Did manage to get a couple drunk on beer traps. :-)
ReplyDeleteHi Suzie I think you can eat the garden ones but you need to purge them first by feeding them a diet of bran for a few days then nothing at all.
DeleteSo enterprising Fee! We had slugs and snails a few years ago, to the point where I couldn't plant any seeds because seedlings were devoured as soon as they sprouted. I think we have more birds hanging around now, especially kookaburras. I love your analysis of the situation!
ReplyDeleteThanks Liz I can only home that over the summer our lizard and frog populations build back up. I am on to round 3 of basil and maybe now they will make it to the garden.
DeleteWow thats a lot of snails!
ReplyDeleteI must admit Ive not seen many snails since moving away fom the hinterland and living nearer to the coast - not sure if its the sandier soils they dont like?