Horace
I grow vegetables.
I did try to grow them as organically and ethically as possible.
This meant dealing with pests, slugs and snails in a humane manner.
Deter or remove without killing them.
This involves time consuming things like,
Companion planting.
Laying down eco friendly deterrants, like sharp gravel or crushed up eggshells, copper strips around tender seedlings. etc
Prowling the plot at night with a torch to find any slugs and snails and throwing them over a fence into the wilderness beyond.
And then after months of this ,finally realisation dawned that none of those methods really worked after I met Horace.
Horace first turned up in my bed of oak leaf lettuce.
As snails go, he was a pretty handsome specimen, with bands of pink and grey swirls and a funny little dent in the top of his shell.
I picked him up, threw him over the wall, along with several other of his slimy brethren.
The next night I found him snacking on my radishes.
I recognised the dent and picking him up I wagged my finger at him before chucking him over the fence again.
About the 5th or 6th time I picked the little sucker up at night , is when I named him.
Before chucking him over the wall again.
The next night he was there again and he waved his slimy antenna at me in a very cheeky manner, I swear one of them withdrew and then winked at me before I picked him up and hurled him over the wall again.
It was then i decided it was war.
Out went the humane approach and in came the beer traps to lure and drown those slimy little veg chompers.
And the piles of salt in narrow trays laid between my precious veg.
I chucked all the dead slugs and snails I found each morning into my compost bin
Horace was never amongst them.
Thats because every flipping night I found him smugly and snuggly tucked under some tender seedling grinning at me, before i chucked him over the wall again .
I developed a sort of grudging respect for the tenacious little fella.

I dont know what the life span for the average garden snail is, but if Horace turns up again this year I may just either have to stamp on him or give him his own personal veg patch
(insomniac-surfer oh go on then, just this once, Thu 6 May 2010, 1:18, 8 replies)

Get chickens
They love to eat snails and slugs, and will dig them out from their hibernation hidey-holes over winter, meaning no more slugs in spring/summer.
(Smale is stuffed, Thu 6 May 2010, 8:11, closed)

fuck chickens
give him a veg patch , I like the sound of him
( horace wimp needs more than 49 characters to fully express hi, Thu 6 May 2010, 9:27, closed)

personal veg patch please
luv horace
(babyaeroplanes, Thu 6 May 2010, 9:39, closed)

Slugs and snails
I feel your pain. I tried everything last year to stop the little fuckers decimating my rhubarb and eventually resorted to home-made beer traps. Trouble was, the wet weather kept flushing them out.

This year, I've hit upon an innovative solution. A friend gave me a crate of Gillian McKeith hemp seeds that were short dated and cheap. I couldn't bring myself to eat hemp seeds (after all, veggies need to avoid such hippy things as a matter of personal pride and they had NotDr's gurning face on them), so I decided to use them as mulch. Bingo! No sign of slimy nibbles so far.
(IHateSprouts is baking a huge pie shaped like an enormous pie, Thu 6 May 2010, 9:47, closed)

Aren't the swirly ones
leopard slugs which eat the rest?

It still deserves its own patch though.
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Thu 6 May 2010, 9:50, closed)

I grow all my veg in raised beds
and I don't have any slug or snail problems - unless I try to grow cabbage, for some reason.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Thu 6 May 2010, 10:07, closed)

Entrap him
and keep him as a pet.

Snails make entertaining pets. No barking or postman-chasing - just eating, pooing, sticking their heads out of any holes in whatever container they're confined in, colliding slowly with each other... hours of fun.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Thu 6 May 2010, 12:32, closed)

A garden pond
Do not put goldfish in it.
The frogs will eat your slugs.

Get some French people in to eat the snails.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 6 May 2010, 13:06, closed)