Someone wrote that if you were going make a sci-fi alien creature, a slug is a good place to start. I wish I knew where I read that. For all you non-hard-core gardeners, I have probably lost you. You might even ask, “What is a slug?” A slug is a terrestrial gastropod mollusk. They can decimate garden greens such as Kale and Lettuce.
Growing up Connecticut with a huge family garden, woodchucks, squirrels, and slugs were severe enemies. Traps and my dad’s stunning accuracy with his .22 rifle pretty much took care of the groundhogs. Box traps caught the squirrels. It was not until I was in the Army that I discovered that squirrel was not a staple.
A number of the land slugs are invasive creatures. To protect our time and labor investments in the garden, my mom would have my brother and me go out early to the food plot. My sneakers would always get soaked with the heavy dew. Often, we would go barefoot. Our weapons were hand grass shears. Commonly, between the two of us, over one hundred severed corpses lie in the fringe. We would do the next day again.
In desperation to find something useful of the slugs. So my brother and I tried using them as bait for bass in the river a short distance from our home. It’s pretty sad when even a bass won’t eat you.
Time passed, and after time at the university and the Army, I had my first exclusive garden. Once I had wiped out the entire woodchuck colony with exactingly locating all the entrances and exits, smoke bombs made their tunnels their graves. Surprisingly, there were no slugs in the hollow. For decades the land lay uncultivated; dominated by Cynodon dactylon (Couch Grass). Being young and ambitious, I ripped the plants out of the loose, fertile loamy soil and made a massive compost pile. (I did not know about churning the stack or the superior strategy of many small collections.)
The project became my first organic food operation. I sold excess Chinese Cabbage and other greens to an oriental grocery store that I frequented. I was hooked.
Years later I became a high-end landscaper. Suddenly, there was the reintroduction to the dreaded slugs which ruined many shade gardens. The organic, ecology-minded part of me looked for the natural approach.
[Insert Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30] Enter the most voracious predator of food plots: Bufo bufo (the Common Toad). This amphibian relishes slugs. Their natural habitat is marshy areas. Toads will traverse dry areas but need a wet home to come back to after feasting. Ta da! These creatures are rather easy to please as long as there is ample territory for each.
We are The Unmentionables. join
