Those of you who know me, know I can't stand bugs. But after reading the slug thread, I just feel a little sorry for them. Don't you?

I now think that a big part of the damage done to my plants last summer was slugs.

However, they're just so slow, on the large side, all jiggly and moist and vulnerable looking, and we're talking about 15 different ways to torture the creatures... (Oh, and I don't think it was mentioned in the slug thread, but I read in my new OG mag about copper tape shocking them, and some other form of torture in which the slugs' bellies are cut open or something!!)

I mean, they're not nasty little insects with a hard shell, brittle little antennae and flying all in your hair, and creepy crawling up your leg.

As hilarious as it sounds to have a "slug bucket", I'd feel sad about slinging it around! I'd have to be gardening in black (in memorium)or something

I'm practically laughing out loud imagining that you all think I'm the biggest freaking idiot right now, but I just can't help feeling sorry for them!!!

Hi GT,

I'm sure you will feel sorry for them when you find them in your lettuce too. And since you feel sorry , you'll probably spit them out. But, be gentle when spitting!

How ya been?

Greenish Thumb,
I don't think you're crazy for feeling sorry for the slugs. I definitely consider it a sign of compassion and concern for the well-being of another, even if they aren't what one would consider a loveable creature. When I found a recipe for a citrus oil insect spray, I was extremely disheartened to find that it acted as a "nerve poison" and I know I could never use it without feeling awful about it. Although slugs and other bugs can damage plants, they aren't doing it with malicious intent, they are just trying to survive and reproduce, and some of the methods for killing such creatures do sound rather malicious.

Oh, I totally feel sorry for them. In fact, I don't torture them and wouldn't, even if they were eating my entire crop and it were the only way to control them. I still hold a special fondness in them from my childhood when they were dear and near to my heart.

I do think there are reasonably humane ways of killing them, though--cutting them in half is probably as quick a way to go as any. Feeding them to chickens or birds is probably pretty quick and relatively painless as well, and at least it contributes to the cycle of life.

But in my garden, we don't even kill them. I've found that if I leave them alone, predators come in and take care of most of them--leaving just enough to munch on a few leaves here and there and leave trails on my tomatoes occasionally. They do give me fits in the strawberry patch, taking two tiny, slimy bites out of each strawberry at exactly the moment that it becomes ripe. The only good control I've found for that is to leave the fire ants to proliferate in the strawberry beds and eat the slugs. Then we have plenty of gorgeous, unblemished, perfectly ripe strawberries that we could harvest and enjoy if only we could figure out a way to do it without getting covered in fire-ant-welts.

The closest we come to torturing slugs and other garden pests is that my kids enjoy them as pets. They don't generally last more than a few days as pets, and then we all feel very sad and we give them proper burial and mourn their loss. But the best kind of pet is a tomato hornworm! Man, those are cool! And they're hardy enough to generally last until they are ready to pupate.

Unfortunately, once you've had them as pets, you can't destroy them. They must be released into the woods to dig in, pupate, and eventually emerge to reproduce and wreak havoc on any nearby tomato or potato plants.

Always an adventure.

Heather

No!

Not really. They have a job to do, just not my plants. As long as they stay out of my garden I will leave them alone. Now I have a lot of slugs in my well mulched planting beds but little damage to plants maybe because the slugs have enough to eat without going after the plants.

No, I don't feel too sorry for them.

But I do try to live my life in such a way that I won't return as one in the next. Killing them in my garden during this incarnation does pose a problem in that regard, I suppose.

Wayne

I have felt sorry for them before, and last year my 16 year old daughter felt sorry for them a few times, too, and I haven't come-up with an easy remedy, but if I sprinkle salt on my porch and nearby ground, where they seem to lurk, they don't like going there!

I tried crushed eggshells, too...trying to keep them at bay, and not torturing them too much!

I learned when I was a teen, NOT to walk barefoot in slug territory! My family still jokes about the screams I emittted when I stepped on a BIG, FAT, JUICY, one & the slime was all between my toes!

THEN, I didn't feel sorry for them!

nope

Greenish,
You crack me up!! I'll bet in another ten years you'll be setting up natural little shelters in the your garden for all the little bugs you are swatting at right now!! I think in time, if you are a gardener that tries to garden in sync with nature, you end up having a greater tolerance for all things that bug you - taking a 'if you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone' attitude. I grew up petrified of spiders and it took me a long time before I was able to see one in the garden and just leave it be.

The slugs had a hey-day with my tomatoes last year, but we had a horribly wet year so that contributed to the problem. It's survival of the fittest out there in my garden...and I figure if those slugs beat me to the tomato then they have outsmarted me and deserve their reward!

Thanks for a great post....I love your way of looking at things!

PS....What a great snow family!!!

I've been thinking about this question for a while. I guess I could end up feeling sorry for just about any of the little creatures, including garden pests.

I know I've got to try to control them if I am to have anything come out of my work.

So my answer is, I'm not going to think about it, but like Heatherhead said, if I can make their demise quick and painless, I will surely do so.

And, Like Wayne said, I don't want to have to come back as a slug.

Nope.. I love amphibians! Let them Peep! I would like to keep some poultry, but after my latest Blind SPot trip... Perhaps I can keep ducks, but not chickens.

Out in the Sticks in Ohio, where I'm from, we had these really big slugs, over 5 inches long. They left a slimey path. We left salt out for them.

If slugs want to survive,,, Let them go organic... after those lush greens out in the forest... not in my garden. But the slugs will invade organic gardens...

and give praise to another garden buddy... Lizards!

quote:

Originally posted by wasrabbity:
Out in the Sticks in Ohio, where I'm from, we had these really big slugs, over 5 inches long. They left a slimey path. We left salt out for them.

Yikes, slugs get that big? The slugs around here get to be half an inch at the biggest... that I've seen anyways. Have to admit that I have never felt sorry for the slimy buggers tho. The more frogs, lizards, toads and chickens in the garden the fewer slugs and bugs, makes a happier me. I do like spiders too, even tho my SIL's think I'm nuts.

GT-I'm totally with you. . .about the only bug I can kill is aphids, and I think that's only because they're so small that it's hard to see their features, so maybe I can pretend that they're not really a bug? I have a hard time killing anything-I don't want things eating MY plants in MY yard, but how in the heck are they supposed to know it's MY yard? Heather, you sound very similar to me-my kids have many bug pets!

good, then I'm not alone!