There is no way I'm gonna 'pop' grubs with my fingers like Mulchy. :O You will never see my out in my garden at nite 'snipping snails' with scissors like Jennifer. :8} I refuse to share my beer with anything shorter than my sister-in-law. And Kudzu is out there salting them?? Why?? ?:| ?:| Do the birds like them better salted?
I don't wanna grow up....

Kitt

Hey, I've been doing this garden thing for seven years noe and I still won't do any of that!

chris

Salt kills 'em. Don't have to get your hands dirty. Good way to prep 'em for escargo, too :^O.

I don't pop bugs with my fingers, but my one-year-old would if he thought he should. His favorite place in the garden is my outdoor "worm house," which also houses an assortment of pill bugs, slugs, earwigs, and other lovelies, which he will sit and watch--and pick up and play with--for half an hour at a time. He cries when I put the lid back on. He is very gentle with the critters, though--I've not seen him so much as smoosh a slug, despite prolonged handling!

I can't watch him do it. It grosses me out! LOL But I'm glad he's so interested in nature! He has this sweet little sound he makes--"uh-aaah!"--it starts on a lowish note and pitches upward steeply, and it's the sound he makes when he's excited about something and wants to get closer. He will make this sound unceasingly for half an hour at a time when playing with bugs.

My four-year-old won't even touch caterpillars! LOL

Get real. Salt kills snails and slugs?! What does it do? Harden their little arteries? Well that's my 'learned somethin' new' for the day.

Kitt

Well, it's been a while since I researched it, but it's my understanding that it has something to do with osmosis. Really. :^O

Here's what I remember: because slugs and snails are made up mostly of water (even more so than humans), and because their "skin" is highly permeable, if you sprinkle them with salt, it forces the water (through osmosis) to exit their bodies, thus causing them to shrivel up and, yes, die.

I think that's about it. Someone else could probably explain it better.

Hey, that gives new meaning to the saying "Eat salt, and die" That was it, wasn't it? So, wait, then do ya go out there and pick up the little shriveled skins, or what?
Wonder what would happen if I pour salt on my thighs...hmmm.

Kitt

I salt chicken thighs...

I snip slugs, not snails, with scissors. And we can't use salt, as I explained. Now snails I gather into a pile, cover with leaves, and step on them. I can't pop grubs with my fingers, either. So I slice into them with a trowel. None of this is pleasant but it beats having my produce eaten up.

I don't think my chickens would appreciate it if I salted their thighs! :^O

I jsut live and let live in my garden and it seems to work No slugs (well, ok, I saw 1 this year but a toad ate it. I know, I watched! grubs...I toss where the waiting birds can see it and they gobble em down. ants...I have birds that come and eat those to when i disterb an ant hill. The birds are always watching me...it's kind of errie acturally...but better they eat the bugs then peck at me! I leave the bunnies that live under my garage alone, and in turn they havnt touched any of my veggie garden and the deer can have peace in the woods and leave my garden alone. :x I've never had trouble here :x

I just about sprinted screaming out of my gardening after spotting my first tomato hornworm feeling certain the marshans had landed. Seems I neglected to read up on them well enough and skipped over their size. I was figuring them for 1/4 to a 1/2 inch. I had several 4 inchers. By the end of the season I was (begrudingly I admit) pulling them off by hand and squishing them like those fast food ketchup packets under foot. I figured it would perhaps deter other invaders...It didn't.

Jason

Oh yeah those things can be huge! Cross my fingers we usually don't have more than 3 or 4 a year here. But In southern IN we had an invasion one time. I hate how they wiggle on you when you pick them up-eeyew!! But poppin grubs with rubber garden gloves on I like. Not nearly as much yucky stuff as hornworms and iris borers. Those are big too, Jason.

In the 90's, when I lived in Tehachapi, Ca. I had made the mistake of planting 6 cherry tomatoes (about 4 too many). Every morning & evening I went out checking for tomato worms. Got them when the were very small. Neighbor across the street lost all her tomatoes to the worms. One day I noticed a worm in the gutter of my neighbors driveway. It was HUGE! I bent over to pick it up and I swear the bugger reared up at me! It was kind of freaky. I decided not to take any chances, never hacing been atacked by a worm before and I went & got a shovel!
I had cherry tomatoes all summer, literally couldn't give them away! The plants had grown up over the garage. In November that year the news sais we'd have a frost that night, so I ran out, picked all the tomatoes,red & green, stuck them in the fridge. The next morning all the plants were laying on the ground, looking like aliens had just shot them with rays guns!

Granma, that hornworm wasn't being aggressive, he was terrified of you!!! :^O

Are the spikes on those hornworms serious pokers, or are they just rubbery? I always have about 3 layers of gloves on when I take those awful things off!

Hey, folks, you don't have to squish anything. You can collect everything in a can and dispose of the creatures any way you want. Too much salt won't help you garden, but a little won't hurt. Predatory nematodes will control the grubs and BT will get most of the caterpllars--unfortunately they have to eat a bit of your crop in order to ingest the bacteria. My friends tell me that the nematodes have caused dramatic drops in their slug populations, as well. They apparently don't kill the adults, but may attack the eggs. (?) I haven't found any literature about them attacking slugs--just anecdotal evidence. Anyway, that's my two cents.