#dealing with slugs

[balkanradfem]

On rain-related pests in the garden

So this year has decided to have one of the most rainy springs I've seen. It's been raining for a week and a half, and the prognosis is rain for another week. It reminds me of the first year of my gardening; we also had incessant rain for almost a month, and everyone was saying it was the absolute worst year for gardening yet. Me, who has not gardened ever before, thought it was the best year ever because I had garden produce like never before in my life (because I never gardened before), and was extremely pleased with it.

So, what does constant rain mean for gardening?

It means different things for different plants. Peas, for example, absolutely love it. Wet and cold is their ideal growing conditions, they're having a great time and growing visibly bigger every single day. Peppers are also having a great time! They love being watered and being watered constantly makes sure they'll produce some good roots. I've also noticed cabbage and kale doing very well in the rain, potatoes seem pleased, and all of the squash and the beans I've planted are coming out of the ground, and I'm guessing they're growing roots and waiting for sunshine to do better. Tomatoes, however, are not pleased at all. They're prone to getting sick if their leaves get water and then dirt on them, and since they're all small and close to the ground, they're getting dirty easily. They're also struggling to draw enough nutrients from the ground in the cold, so some are turning black, and others are a little frozen in time, just waiting until it's sunny again so they can grow.

There's a common problem in the community gardens, and people's gardens in general, where this much ran can cause a flood, meaning your plants can get their roots and stalks completely covered in water, and they do not enjoy or tolerate that. Plants that are drowning end up with their roots rotted away; it can happen to seeds as well, if they're completely underwater, they'll rot before managing to sprout.

There's another, equally big problem with this much rain – the slugs are thriving. Slugs have gotten into everyone's garden, and they're eating, well, almost everything in sight. I have had a good share of my baby bean plants eaten away, and I'm seeing big pieces of my baby cabbages missing. Beans seem to be their favourite, they're focused on annihilating them instantly, but they'll also happily eat strawberries when ripe, lettuce, cabbage, peppers, green beans, and anything that is pulled out of the ground and rotting. I actually found most of the slugs in my garden feasting on some old plants and weeds I pulled out that started rotting, there's something irresistible in it to slugs, apparently. So what can you do about slugs?

There's many tricks and methods commonly used and shared, like, put a container of beer in the ground, and they'll all drown in there. They can get picked off and eaten away by a specific variety of ducks. Some people will grow plants that are specifically alluring to slugs to distract them from their other garden produce, others will just go ahead and use diatomaceous earth or some kind of poison to get them to go away. I've never tried any of that; my true and tried method is picking the slugs off, and putting them somewhere else. It takes a lot of dedication and time, but it seems to work; if you're constantly in the garden and picking slugs away, they don't manage to reproduce, so you don't have to deal with their babies next year. With this much rain though, you'll get slugs no matter what you do, they can easily slide to your garden from any patch of grass nearby. Their eggs can also last for several years underground so eradicating them is completely impossible.

If you're trying to pick off your slugs, you need to know how to find them; slugs are not out there and eating your produce all day. They come out early morning, late evening, and after the rain stops. I will usually pick early morning or late evening to visit the garden, and pick them off once a day. It's good to remember to take some gloves so you do not have to deal with the slime (though apparently it's very healthy for the skin), and it's good to have a little container to put them in, so you can easily gather a lot before taking them away.

I found it's easier to find slugs if you're out there weeding and fertilizing, then you catch glimpses of them more easily than when you specifically go and look for slugs. We humans have the advantage of seeing the world from way higher above than slugs, and we tend to move a bit faster, so walking for 2-3 minutes and releasing slugs away from the garden, can disorient them from easily finding your garden again; it's likely they'll find something else to eat closer to their destination. I've never had slugs return in any significant number, it's more likely that you'll get new slugs who are just living closer to your garden.

From the book about 'pests' I've read recently, it's described that killing them largely does not work at all, because it's the food source for the animals that determines how fast they reproduce. So I don't think annihilation is possible, if you're creating a food source, they'll take it as a hint to reproduce at a higher rate, since resources are made available for them to do so. If you're introducing a species that is a predator, you have to count on that species reproducing massively as well, as you've put them in an environment with a large food source. Dislocating the food source, making it unavailable, or dislocating the animal that is eating your produce, so they can't find it again, could potentially hint them into slowing down reproduction, as they're not seeing any food source nearby, I think that's why this method works.

Another problem that is appearing in the garden as the result of the ongoing rain are ants. Ants by themselves are not that harmful to plants, but you know what they do? They'll farm leaf-lice on your plants. They'll find a plant and let lice put their eggs there and then guard the eggs and have bunch of lice eat all of your plants and it's terrible. So ants also need to get a little displaced and find somewhere else to build their farms other than your garden! I've not figured this one yet; I know you can mix 2 anthills in order to create an ant war and have them annihilate each other, but I don't want to make that kind of historical ant drama. I'll look into other options!

[bigfatbreak]

Wait a minute…papa Tom doesn’t seem too hostile towards Nathalie. Or at least she doesn’t seem nervous/blackmailed. Does Tom not know her past allegiances or…is there an alliance in play?

Viceroy employs many in his arsenal, and as far as Nathalie is concerned, Tom is a coworker. :)

[sannin-three]

I wish Tsunade's aesthetics evoked slugs more often. Orochimaru has snake imagery all over the place (design, outfits, hideout decor, official art details, etc), and Jiraiya's sage mode and various official art details feature toads. Genuinely feels like Tsunade's slug connection only comes up occasionally. Like that art of them as kids where instead of having a slug decoration to match her teammates, she has dice. (Orochimaru's decoration is a snake and it's hard to see but Jiraiya has a toad head)

The dice are cute but also why? When does my favorite hokage/medic get to have outfits or jewelry or decals that evoke slug imagery??

[smugcomputer]

insects of the uk

[kitty4president]

when the slugs are metal or something idk i havent played the game

[fexarii]

i have sm art of my spamton oc but im too shy to post any of it. hheglp/

[blimbo-buddy]

Queen Mulch voice: Ditch I need you to get me a pack of marlboros and a diet coke I need to calm do- yeah it's bad this time. You sound mad are you annoyed with me please don't tell me you're annoyed. Can you be honest with me, do you want to kill me and expose my past to the world

[bonefall]

How would a thunderclan cat go about caring for leeches? I imagine it would be harder for them than Shadowclan cats since I imagine things aren’t quite as like.. damp in thunderclan. I love leeches pls give me the husbandry lore 🥺

I'm taken aback at how many people want the leech lore, I did not expect this much love for Spotty's girls. But, ok!

For one, they are medicinal leeches. Hirudo medicinalis. This species is actually threatened in England, specifically because it's so rare for livestock to drink from lakes these days. So these wild leech specimens are actually found in ShadowClan territory, and they heavily rely on Clan cats!

They also do prey on the occasional boar, fox, or badger that wades through the mud. ShadowClan loves leeches, they think they are useful as medicine AND as snacks, leading to a symbiotic relationship.

(sadly this means that the expansion of the highway and the loss of the Clan cats massively disrupted the leech population. There are probably conservationists who discover too late that there were medical leeches surviving in this area and despair over how they could have saved the White Hart woods.)

Anyway, keeping leeches is easiest for ShadowClan of course, but ThunderClan can do it with some effort. Spotty has a two-part terracotta bowl (a dish and a lid) which helps keep them cool, even in summer, and she stores them in the darkest part of her den. At the bottom of this bowl is mud, wet leaves, swampy substrate.

It's not hard to feed them with worms or insects, but they have so many elders with joint pain that there's enough food to go around. Spotty also really doesn't mind just letting them nibble her arm; leech bites aren't painful or anything.

The hardest part is getting pond water when she needs to clean the bowl. You want water that's full of good bacteria that can support fish, not just any old ditchwater.

Before Yellowfang's exile, she would ask for ShadowClan pond water and usually be granted permission with an escort. Brokenstar didn't see a need to make a hard embargo with ThunderClan when he was so focused on eradicating WindClan first.

Yellowfang has a lot more knowledge about caring for leeches though. Because she can't access pondwater, she ran some experiments with the lesser-leeches (the ones that weren't Spotty's beloved 3), and found she can clean the bowl slowly using river water, but doing it all at once could shock the leeches.

But, it's not very hard. Harder than keeping mealworms, but leeches are an easy animal to keep. They're also really cute, like fat worms, with nice patterns.

[kelvingemstone]

a starstruck odyssey is for lovers

[raayllum]

no no fandom. explain to me. explain how n’than guiding the kids through the zones of peril is different than ellis guiding the kids through the cursed caldera

[welcometogrouchland]

Everyone: will hunter carve a new staff?? Will he learn glyphs?? Will flapjacks sacrifice give him powers like teleporting or harpy mode?

Me: what if they just give him a sword

[brennustheskeleton]

[umbrellacam]

sure would be nice. if people could debunk a dumb exaggerated/incorrect fanon without people immediately turning it 180° and happily hauling ass right into another dumb exaggerated/incorrect fanon. while gleefully crowing about how canon and correct this opposite take is.

sure would be nice 🙃

[ichorblossoms]

googling bee anatomy shit for monstery yarrow purposes and sitting here like. yeah this ain't gonna work i gotta make this up on my own or just straight up not go with that idea

[caspersscareschool]

any single girls want to come over and see the colossal wad of phlegm i just hacked into the trash can

[archersartcorner]

(Not a question but thought id share) I spent my day in emerg getting stitches after busting open my knee, and all your Norm and Skip content kept me calm and happy. Ty for drawing my favorite goobers <3

Literally am so touched by this, you have no idea 😭😭😭 I’m so sorry to hear about your knee but I’m glad my art’s been lifting your spirits!!! 🥺

Some extra goobers for you, hoping for a smooth recovery your way!!!