Saturday 15 September 2012

Spanish slugs are here !

Well now it's official...more or less. A headline on twitter this morning pronounced "Plague of giant Spanish super slugs invade Britain! It made interesting reading, particularly the bit where they can mate with smaller British slugs. As they produce masses of eggs the problem is fast becoming apparent!

It's been apparent here for a while as regular readers of this blog will know.

I went straight out and spotted two of about 6 inches immediately. By the time I'd come back for my iPhone they'd gone. So they are clever as well as hungry! This is a leopard slug but they come in a variety of shades!

It does pose a threat I think...not just to gardeners but all producers of food too...

I have no qualms about throwing them over the fence and it should be noted....that is not an oil slick outside!

The Spanish have given us interesting things over the years, starting with flu . But these slugs are not just a threat to the gardeners. Everyone in this country involved in food production needs to be aware of real danger.....they can eat several plants in a night quite easily!

We need to get all their natural enemies ready to eat! Frogs, toads, hens! To the barricades!



2 comments:

Ray Barnes said...

Yours would be "a banner with a strange device" indeed.
When you've dealt with your invasion, how about coming to stay here for a while?
Much as I detest the revolting creatures I still can't bring myself to kill them. Perhaps if they get big enough, they could kill and eat me.
Quite a tidy solution?

UKViewer said...

We have some small slugs, so the foreign invasion hasn't reached us in Kent, which is surprising as we supposedly are the gateway to England. Perhaps our Visa checks for illegals are working :)

I don't like killing wild creatures so we pick them up and put them on the hedge of the neighbouring park, where they can munch to their content.

We've had some large snails which again are given their freedom in the park, with dire warnings of the consequences of returning.

Another factor might be that we have a fox population, which eat slugs and snails as well as any thing else, which might be keeping them down.