Given the lovely spring weather of late, I’ve been spending late afternoons weeding my garden. Because of all the rain, the weeds this year are nearly as tall as I am. Fortunately the soil is soft and the weeds and their roots pull easily.
If you were around my garden today, every few minutes you would have heard a faint pinging sound. Like a bell ringing somewhere in the distance.
But it wasn’t a bell. It was my snail eradication strategy. I don’t have the heart to squoosh the little fellas, so I gather then up by the handful and lob them over my fence. Most of them end up hitting the chainlink fence just beyond mine, causing the hollow metallic ping.
I suppose it’s not much more humane than the squoosh. But I do feel a bit less guilty.
Note: the snail above is one of the few that didn’t end his life sailing through the air and out of my garden. He lived on the iris stems in my flowerbed for a good long time last spring. 🙂
I have a friend who is a pro snail smasher and it really grosses me out. I stepped on one on my Birthday and felt really really bad. Are they bad for the plants?
One night last week I stepped on a snail by accident (he shouldn’t have been out taking a walk in the dark without a flashlight, I guess) as I was on my way out to the car to get something. I felt so bad, but I didn’t see him in time to avoid him. In fact, I didn’t see him at all until I heard his shell crack.
We have another, smaller snail, that sometimes climbs up the outside of our front doorframe and I always insist that we leave him be because I have this sort of idea that it’s good luck to have him there, like he is favoring our apartment or something. *shrug*
And, no, I don’t know why I am assuming that our local snails are all male. 🙂