Slugs

That's a little tiddler @willow - you should see the size of some of them here! They have all appeared again now that we've had some rain, I go out at night sometimes & pick them up & throw them in the council recycling bin we have where they can munch on the cooked food waste & perennial weeds in there instead of my plants!

I'll try & get one to pose @willow, I put a load in the bin the other night & they've just been emptied this morning - one of them must have been six or seven inches long!

You may be interested to know that the slugs pictured are actually carnivores. They eat other slugs not plants.

Most of my slugs are large blacks which actually come in lots of different colours including orange/brown/beige, they're supposed to prefer rotting vegetation to fresh plants but don't seem to mind how fresh they are here, they will eat squashed dead slugs but don't actively 'hunt' - I believe Spanish slugs will hunt & Leopard slugs will also. Had leopard slugs at our old garden but haven't noticed any here yet. Here's a couple of pics. I took of leopard ones about 10 years ago, I think they're rather beautiful creatures:-





& here's one of my whopping big slugs chomping on potato foliage last night:-

I threw about 8 big fat slugs in the 'green waste' bin again yesterday, they keep stealing the bird food off the ground trays! I've never used slug pellets, I know you can get better 'wildlife-friendly' ones now but I still worry about the birds, frogs & hedgehogs eating the slugs & snails that have eaten them. Apparently some slug pellets are cereal based & cats & dogs can be attracted to eating them although they would need to eat a large number to make them ill, I'll try & find where I read that, can't remember just now.

luckily I don't walk on farmland, only pass by fenced fields which are used for grazing. I only put pellets down near certain plants and very few of them and Dylan has never been interested in them

Saw this one this morning, put the phone at side for reference.....it's a whopper!