Next door to me lives a greedy man in a bungalow set in an acre of beautiful garden, who has recently consulted a developer with a view to demolish bungalow , flatten garden including mature trees and build a small housing estate ( he has since withdrawn planning permission due to pressure from local resident’s outrage.)
Do you think I should hoover up the remaining caterpillars and eggs and re-house them in his vegetable garden, as he is obviously not to bothered about it’s outcome,or would that be too naughty?

Regards fred.

With regards to natural pesticides you can soak Rhubarb leaves or Crysanthamums (sp) for a week you get a natural poison that bio-degrades, it will however kill the good guys as well.

On a programme here a couple of months ago called “Catch it, kill it, cook it” they produced a dish called “Squirrel in Plum sauce” basically the duck dish with squirrel. If you can’t beat them… Eat them )

I’ve been experimenting with uses for old car tyres round the garden this year and grew very successful and happy lettuces, squashes and kale protected by inside-out tyres. If you cut both rims out with a really sharp Stanley knife it’s very easy to turn them and the slugs didn’t seem to be able to smell what was inside them.

My condolences, I know what it feels like to come back to utter devastation. It’s not slugs that are a problem in my garden, I think I’ve got that one sorted by allowing a good amount of “groundcover” weeds, lots of rotting matter and the like to remain in my beds and thereby providing a heaven for assorted amphibians and “easy” food for slugs. Although just recently we discovered a slug so big(15cm x 1,5cm) we nearly gave it a name and kept it as a pet!
When we came back from spending a week at Glasto, we found that squirrels had eaten every brassica in the garden, kale, kohlrabi, pakchoi, the lot, gone. Also all the apples of my two apple trees, gone. Strawberries? Must have been pudding! And to finish off: two beautiful mature silverbark birch stripped bare from 4 meters upwards. I have now joined the squirrel hating society and been busy trapping and relocating them, veggie ten year old daughter preventing squirrel pie being on the menu. My worry now is this: if a gardener manages to deal with one pest succesfully, does it mean the next test is a bigger kind of pest, due to its’ size capable of greater devastation?

I was once told a tale of some bushcrafting type who tried to impress this woman he fancied by eating a big fat juicy slug in front of her to show how ‘hard’ he was. Apparently he had the slime stuck to the roof of his mouth for weeks afterwards. And I suspect the woman he was trying to woo was not best keen on giving him a great big snog after that. So that plan failed then.

Seriously, ever thought of getting some?