Life is busy......

.....I work. I have 3 teenage kids, 2 of whom seem to want ferrying around to their friends’ houses on a whim. When I climb into bed at night I feel like the middle-aged man I am. So you have to do everything you can to make life slow down a bit, by cutting corners or eliminating all those little tasks that are unimportant.

With this in mind I’m amazed at the lengths the organic brigade go to in order to try and rid their gardens of slugs and snails. On a couple of forums I subscribe to whenever I mention slug pellets you’d think I’d advocated gang rape by the reaction I get. They will happily f*ck about with all sorts of stupid ideas from putting bran around their plants, to crushed eggshells, nematodes and copper strips. Some even go out at night with torches hunting for the snotty little bastards. Quite apart from the cost involved with these ideas I’m just amazed that anyone has time to fart about in such a way. And NONE OF THEM ACTUALLY BLOODY WORK!

However, slug pellets do work. Quickly. One flick of the wrist puts down a scattering of pellets. You don’t need to overdo it. Slugs and snails get attracted to them and die almost on contact. My right wrist is then free to do those important little tasks that God gave it me so to do, and I can also watch late night telly safe in the knowledge that my plants are being protected.

In the morning I will find the dead or dying carcasses of all these little plant killers and it feels good! Don’t believe people who tell you that wildlife eats these rotting molluscs because they don’t. And apparently for slug pellets to do a hedgehog any harm they would have to eat 10,000 of them. In my book that’s one dumbass hedgehog.

In defence of pellets

Here is a picture of a patch of hostas at the side of my house. There isn't a hole from slug or snail damage anywhere to be seen. The reason? I use SLUG PELLETS!

I hate snails. If I never saw another snail for the rest of my life I'd be happy. Quite how those weird french bleeders can eat them by the bucket load is beyond me. But then we did have to bail the workshy twats out of two World Wars.

If I didn't use pellets this patch of hostas (not to mention my cabbages, beans, lettuce etc) would be reduced to stalks as the snotty little sods march over them unchecked. The various solutions offered up by the yippee-hippee, organic, 'thou shalt not' brigade do NOT work. These include using layers of grit, eggshells, bran and beertraps. Why anyone would want to waste beer in such a way is beyond me. And who the hell has enough time to crush enough fecking eggshells to lay a carpet of them for God's sake?

No......believe me.....slug pellets are the only 100% solution. However, if one of the eco MENTALISTS happens to be mincing past your garden putting everyone else's world to rights just as you happen to be spreading a few pellets over your very own little patch of world, he/she will scowl at you from under their psychedelic bobble hat, snort down their pierced nose at you and puff out their chest exhibiting a CND or Greenham Common tattoo. They will bang on at you about how you're killing the environment because birds, hedgehogs, cats and dogs will be poisoned by your little blue Hiroshimas.

Over the years I have developed a way of skilfully counteracting their arguments. I tell them to f*ck off.

Slugs and snails seem to be drawn to crawl over pellets as if they're in a sort of death trance. Death is quick. And it's satisfying. But a slug or snail that has died this way does not get immediately devoured by the next passing hedgehog, frog or bird.....and how many dogs do you know that eat soil? Instead the carcasses lie there untouched for weeks, festering away. And even if a hedgehog was daft enough to eat it, then it's been estimated that they would need to eat another 9,999 for it to do it any harm !