Is this harmful to plants? It leaves a sticky gel which when accidentally touched gives an awful sensation. We hate its presence esp. when it forces its way through the kitchen sink pipe into the basin [the pipe opens out into the garden on the ground]. It is now sitting on my billbergia plant.
I've never looked at one up close like that, but it does look like some sort of slug. I don't know if it's a different kind than what we have here, but ours will chew holes in the leaves of plants so you probably don't want them there! The nontoxic way to control them is to put a strip of copper around the base of the plant, they won't crawl over it (here they sell copper strips in garden stores, if you can't find them there, you can probably get copper foil at something like a hardware store or home center if you have those)
Thanks. Copper? How does copper repel them? Some chemical reaction takes place when it steps on it?
The copper reacts with the slime that snails and slugs produce and gives them an electric shock when they try to cross it.
Here is a link to some organic ways to deal with snails & slugs:
http://www.ghorganics.com/page13.html
I've had good luck using Escar-Go from Gardens Alive: pellets you scatter in the garden. Targets only slugs, harmless to wildlife and pets. You can also set out pans of stale beer; but to me this is a waste of good brew, and I hate dumping out the carcasses.
is a slug and a leach the same thing? That looks like leaches we used to throw at each other..i personally ran like the wind from them!! I pour salt on my slugs.
Leeches are a different animal. In simple terms, slugs eat plants, leeches drink blood. They have been used for healing blood letting for millennia, which is why doctors were often referred to as "leeches", although some of the ancient doctors over used them. Today leeches are usually used to improve circulation when limbs are surgically reattached. The enzymes secreted by a leech with prevent the blood from coagulating and their sucking helps move the blood in the effected area.
Leeches are now registered as a medical device in the US, so you can't by any "clean" ones without a doctor's prescription.
For more information on how leeches are used in practice today:
http://www.leechesusa.com/leechesusa/
For general information on leeches:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leech
Thanks g-m for the info on leeches being considered part of medication there in the US.
Dinu, you are welcome. Leeches always remained in use in Ayurveda, Siddha Vaidhya and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Allopathic western medicine has only recently rediscovered them.
And now a few words on behalf of slugs from the American Museum of Natural History:
"Slugs have an important place in the ecosystem of the world. Most slugs are herbivores, eating fungi, lichens, green plants, shoots, roots, leaves, fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Slugs are also known for being scavengers; eating decaying vegetation, animal feces, and carrion.....
Predators [of slugs] do, however, exist. They include the hedgehog, badger, shrew, mole, mouse, frog, toad, snake, carnivorous beetle, some birds, and some other mammals (9). Thus, the slug has an important place in the ecosystem and the food web of the environments in which it lives. Certain organisms depend upon the slug for its food, and the slug, in turn, depends upon other organisms. ......
if the slug did not perform its important role as a decomposer, there would be a domino effect which would reach humans. As Karl Studenroth explains "nutrients would be locked up in dead organisms longer and unavailable to living organisms [without the slug's presence]." This "locking up of nutrients" would effect the fertileness of soil. Fertile soil is very important to human existence......at the end of the end, absolutely everything we humans eat can be tracked back to soil."
full article text here:
http://tinyurl.com/v7lzr
Here in California we have some very interesting banana coloured slugs that have become the mascot for the University of California at Santa Cruz:
http://slugweb.com/gallery.html
My DH and I prefer the barrier methods to keep the slugs and snails out of the garden so that we don't have to kill them. I'm happy to let them eat decaying matter, just not my plants. One of the houses I lived at had such a heavy infestation of snails and slugs that I gave up trying to hand pick them and got a pet duck. She very quickly cleaned up the infestation and was a charming companion as well.
Photos of some copper slugrings in the UK:
http://www.slugrings.co.uk/
Info on keeping backyard ducks:
http://pathtofreedom.com/pathproject/simpleliving/ducks.shtml
I'm learning some new things here! Ducks, slugs... Thanks for the same. Yes indeed, the soil is so very important to human life. But in my opinion, organic gardening is the key to preserving the natural ecology.
