But how should you get rid of snails and slugs out of your house? Is there a humane way of doing it? And how on Earth did they get inside in the first place? Slide down to find a somewhat slimy trail of insights. As slugs and, to a lesser extent, snails can squish themselves into tiny spaces, it may be difficult to find out how they enter your house. Slugs bury themselves in the soil or find a moist, well-protected spot where they remain in a state of suspended animation. They secrete a mucous-like cocoon around themselves and wait it out until there is enough rain or moisture to dissolve the mucous and soak the water into their bodies.
They can loose as much as 50 percent of their weight during a dry spell and then regain it all after only two hours of rehydrating. Slug damage is often as serious in late summer as it is in the spring due to renewed soil moisture levels and higher populations. Slugs secrete a slimy mucous trail as they move across plants and smooth objects. This prevents them from drying out and provides a protective track on which they glide across sharp surfaces.
It can be seen as a silvery trail on leaves. Cultural Control. One tactic is to reduce the favorable habitats where slugs live and reproduce. Keep mulch layers shallow; a uniform, one-inch layer will prevent rapid drying around the plants and will not retain excessive soil moisture. Since slugs also feed on decaying plant material, do not mulch with fresh grass clippings where slugs are a problem, and rake leaves from the garden beds in the fall.
Mechanical Control. Traps are a mechanical form of slug control. Trap boards or moist newspaper or carpet samples, about a square foot in size, can be placed around plants where slugs have been feeding. Slugs and snails have very thin, permeable skin so, when you sprinkle salt on them, water is rapidly sucked out of their cells via a process called osmosis. Pretty soon, the slug will shrivel up and die of dehydration as water and air are sucked out of its skin by the salty, slimy solution that covers it.
The question of whether slugs, snails and other bugs feel pain is a controversial one. This theory assumes that the sensation of pain is generated by the conscious brain and is, therefore, the sole domain of vertebrates. Pain and discomfort are evolutionary necessities for all sentient creatures — after all, how else would we learn to avoid things that cause us physical harm? You could use salt to control slugs and snails in your garden, but only if you can handle the karmic repercussions.
There are many other more humane ways to keep slugs and snails off your veggies that are just as effective, but a little less psychopathic. Slugs and snails favor certain types of foliage, including young, succulent plants and low-growing fruits. If you want to keep slugs and snails away from your garden, there are a wide variety of slug resistant crops you can plant instead. I once melted in my front yard alone. Remember that scene in The Wizard of Oz, the one where the witch melts? Same idea.
No bodies. A very large four by seven inches clam found in Puget Sound, the geoduck has a crude phallus of a neck that is a source of endless wonderment to visiting back-eastern swells such as yourself. One find geoducks in Seattle markets — they are quite a delicacy — with the massive neck, six to eight inches long and yellowish in color, hanging out of the shell like a giant uncircumcised penis. Not a sight one soon forgets. As for slugs, squishing one between bare toes while walking in the post-sunset cool of a Seattle evening is unquestionably the grossest experience on earth.
Believe me, I know. My thanks to Tamara K. As a native Seattleite on a two-year pitstop in D. I was appalled at your unsophisticated ignorance of slugs. But it was Paul O. Our teams — soccer, skiing, swimming — are called the Evergreen Geoducks. Every graduation the odd graduates solemnly sing the geoduck fight song, written by ex-reference librarian extraordinaire Malcolm Stilson:.
How could you think of addressing the slug question without consulting your faithful Seattle correspondent? Allow me these few comments:. First of all, I concur: slugs are repellent beyond any other life form. Imagine, if you will, hiking up the steep slop of Mt. The trail is at an 80 degree angle.
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