{"id":2946,"date":"2016-09-19T15:44:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T03:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/?p=2946"},"modified":"2016-09-20T07:28:12","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T19:28:12","slug":"snail-patrol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/snail-patrol\/","title":{"rendered":"Snail Patrol"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u00a0like to think\u00a0I’m a believer in\u00a0the permaculture ethic\u00a0of\u00a0fair share<\/a>, but really, enough is enough.\u00a0Since my autumn planting of kale, the humans in this ecosystem have managed to scrounge only\u00a0two meals from 12 plants. The rest was\u00a0gobbled by gastropods.<\/p>\n

\"Cute<\/a>

Cute is as cute does (photo:\u00a0mirror.co.uk<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

Northland snails are an agile and culinary venturesome bunch. Things you might\u00a0never imagine as part of a snail\u00a0diet have disappeared down\u00a0their little gullets.\u00a0The lavender and eau-de-cologne mint have both\u00a0suffered, and the perpetual onions seem to be a current menu\u00a0favorite. Someone once told me that when\u00a0kale plants get tall enough the slimeys\u00a0give up climbing. Not so the Northland crew, they just slither up that kale stem and keep right on munching.<\/p>\n

\"Garden<\/a>

Garden after dark<\/p><\/div>\n

Thus, I’ve declared war, and now, on any given night you can find me outside with a headlamp harvesting slugs and snails. Since I imagine I’m not the only one facing an\u00a0invasion of invertebrates I thought I would let you in on\u00a0my tips and tricks for\u00a0how to run\u00a0a successful\u00a0snail patrol:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. For collection use a deep receptacle\u00a0with a lid. I started off using\u00a0an ice cream carton, but I’ve since adjusted my technique. It gets annoying to be constantly\u00a0peeling your captives off the top of the container as they try to make their escape.<\/li>\n
  2. Put a few sacrificial lettuce leaves in the bottom of your dungeon. This (see point one) helps to keep\u00a0your slimy\u00a0enemies\u00a0entertained and in one place. I’m not sure why English uses\u00a0the words\u00a0snail’s pace, and\u00a0sluggish to convey slow movement. When it comes to escaping from capture these guys can move.<\/li>\n
  3. Collections seem to run in cycles. One night I find mainly snails, on another\u00a0mainly slugs. It’s not clear what the controlling variables are for this phenomenon. Snails are fairly easy to pick up, but slugs are cold slimy things.\u00a0Wear gloves if you’re\u00a0squeamish.<\/li>\n
  4. Remember to look at each\u00a0plant from\u00a0several different angles. According to this article<\/a> snails have only two brain cells, but\u00a0I swear they know how to dodge behind a leaf when they see me coming.<\/li>\n
  5. Examine\u00a0the ground just underneath your plants. Some slugs employ a drop and roll strategy.<\/li>\n
  6. When it comes to the end game, humane methods of gastropod slaughter\u00a0are\u00a0generally suggested to be stomping or freezing. ‘Hello friends! Why yes, that is an ice cream carton of snails in our freezer’.<\/li>\n
  7. If you are not game\u00a0to kill them you need to know that\u00a0research conducted on British snails showed that\u00a0they have a homing instinct<\/a>\u00a0(no, really!). To avoid repopulation you need to\u00a0move the\u00a0enemy captives\u00a0at least 20 metres away from your garden. I suspect that with the Northland snail’s innate athleticism\u00a0I will need\u00a0to\u00a0allow for more like a 100 metre range.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    My most recent means of ‘permanent disposal’ is expatriation to the chicken run. There I figure the crawlers have at least a sporting chance. There is the possibility of\u00a0some of making it to the compost heap to\u00a0live out their lives in\u00a0their role as decomposers. For the less fortunate who\u00a0become calories contributing to the laying of our\u00a0breakfast eggs, at least their demise is a useful one. Seems like a reasonable deal to me.<\/p>\n

    Okay\u00a0dear Readership, any tips for snail control? The comment box\u00a0awaits.<\/p>\n

    <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I\u00a0like to think\u00a0I’m a believer in\u00a0the permaculture ethic\u00a0of\u00a0fair share, but really, enough is enough.\u00a0Since my autumn planting of kale, the humans in this ecosystem have managed to scrounge only\u00a0two meals from 12 plants. The rest was\u00a0gobbled by gastropods. Northland snails… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50,33,41,19,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-farm-life","category-gardening","category-plant-life","category-vegetable-garden","category-vermin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2946"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3132,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2946\/revisions\/3132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}