I used to fight the slugs that ate my strawberries until my friend said “you don’t need fewer slugs, you need more strawberries.”
Get them drunk. The slugs, not the strawberries. Put out jar lids full of beer. Or at least that’s what my uncle Dom did.
Makes sense. In Brooklyn I had a backyard full of fireflies. I loved them. Miss them here.
The problem with biological control, I figure, is this: For every firefly, you need 10 slugs to support it. For every slug that’s 10 strawberries to support it. So every firefly is worth 100 strawberries. It makes me happy to see them, but it still means that every adult firefly I see means there were a bunch of slugs around who ate all my strawberries.
The only foolproof way to eliminate slugs from my garden has been to stop growing strawberries.
Number of Strawberries * 10 = Number of Slugs
If Number of strawberries is 0, number of slugs is 0.
Math!
Isn’t the solution to breed fireflies?
But that’s just asking for more slugs so my firefly breeding program is succesful.
What’s if you got regular flies but just like set them on fire?
Navaronegun Approved!
EDIT: He’s spending more time in than out, lately.
We both know that will lead to this:
http://images.fandango.com/images/fandangoblog/big-ass-spider-700.jpg
It could get worse for you.
Since last year we have had lizards in the yard, the small kind that hide when you go out. And we seem to have fewer slugs and snails. I don’t know if that is coincidence or not.
We are surrounded by lizards year round. As such we never have bugs in the house. Once in a blue moon we get a big roach, but never the little ones. OTOH we do often have a lizard or two running around inside. No problem, keep eating the nasties and you have a home with us.
The lizards are a fairly new thing in this neighborhood. I am not sure where they came from but several neighbors have mentioned them. aside from the cats bringing them in the house I kinda like having them around.
Heh. At night I am lulled to sleep by male lizards trying to get laid. They chirp like birds.
:)
I will have to listen for that.
Geckos guarantee 15% or more pest eradication or your money back.
Btw I never get tired of saying this, if you have a German roach problem (the small ones), Advion will take care of it. It is relatively new (2005?) and it is … a miracle. This is not the roach pesticides of olden times.
Too bad there doesn’t exist an equivalent for mosquitoes. Stupid bald eagles, I miss DDT. We still had mosquitoes thought so maybe DDT isn’t that great either.
In the 60s my mother, brother and I would visit my aunt in Addison, IL. Once a week ‘the smoke truck’ would drive up the street. It was a DDT sprayer. The folks would run out to get us and bring us in the house. There was some vague fear that breathing in the ‘smoke’ might not be good for kids.
Narrator: It wasn’t good for anything.
Edit: It was good for breeding resistant skeeters. And fucking up bird egg shells.
The Osprey…