Daddly Longlegs & Slugs

[blondie95]

to protect my newly planted tomatoe plants outside i cut a plastic bottle so the top and bottom was off and slotted it over top, the slugs can not get into my plants now! as the months go on i will become more and more irate by slugs and what they do to my plants

[Great Plum]

Another way to prevent slugs is to put gravel around a plant - slugs aren't much good on gravel so won't cross it... worked with our tomato plants last year...

[kerrensimmonds]

If your lawn is infested with leatherjackets (and many are now, I understand...) then you probably need professional help before they pupate (is that the right word?) into DLL's. Have you tried eg. a company called 'Green Thumb'?
I'm considering having my whole back lawn dug out and replaced with artificial grass (not because of leatherjackets [although I know I have them, and dig them out and throw them out with the rubbish] but because of a little lady dog who's wee kills grass...., and in any case the lawn is enclosed with high trees and doesn't get much sunlight so it scraggly and waterlogged in places...). Hopefully leatherjackets won't like astroturf.
Slugs are equally a problem, the UK also currently suffering an infestation of them, as well. The way to cope with them (as others have suggested) is to protect your most precious plants with 'rough' ground cover - e.g. bark, or slate chips, beyond which you would probably want to set enticing traps of sweet sticky stuff (e.g. beer, as has been suggested) but if you cannot bear killing them thereafter (it's a pretty unsightly process...) then there's not much point. Just pray they will go somewhere else.....
And, like Maggie, whenever I find snails in my garden, I am afraid that I send them out into the adjacent road to play with the cars. And sometimes there are so many on my front path that one cannot avoid treading on them - but I am sure that the lively wild bird population in my garden is grateful for my way of preparing their dinner!
An interesting subject, on which there are no doubt zillions of different offers of advice!

[sejintenej]

Slugs are equally a problem, the UK also currently suffering an infestation of them, as well. The way to cope with them (as others have suggested) is to protect your most precious plants with 'rough' ground cover - e.g. bark, or slate chips, beyond which you would probably want to set enticing traps of sweet sticky stuff (e.g. beer, as has been suggested) but if you cannot bear killing them thereafter (it's a pretty unsightly process...) then there's not much point. Just pray they will go somewhere else.....
And, like Maggie, whenever I find snails in my garden, I am afraid that I send them out into the adjacent road to play with the cars. And sometimes there are so many on my front path that one cannot avoid treading on them - but I am sure that the lively wild bird population in my garden is grateful for my way of preparing their dinner!
An interesting subject, on which there are no doubt zillions of different offers of advice!

There are a number of types of slugs which normally live underground.
That said two possibilities - the damp earth (which they like) area followed by an after-dark patrol, and also
apparently a copper strip creates a slight curent which they hate and will not cross. I'm just wondering about the innards of some old electric cable wound round a pot of hostas as a nasty but not lethal test

[kerrensimmonds]

Yes David.... I have an OB friend with a 'designer garden'. Mostly gravel, but a central raised bed and several mediterranean blue pots with either trees or more vulnerable 'softer' plants. Each blue pot is surrounded by a copper coloured sticky band, towards the top, to deter slugs.
But once they are deterred, what does one do with them?!

[sejintenej]

Yes David.... I have an OB friend with a 'designer garden'. Mostly gravel, but a central raised bed and several mediterranean blue pots with either trees or more vulnerable 'softer' plants. Each blue pot is surrounded by a copper coloured sticky band, towards the top, to deter slugs.
But once they are deterred, what does one do with them?!

Now't - they slime back whence they came and you may well not even know that they came visiting. Saves you an executioner's job

[icomefromalanddownunder]

I thought that Daddy Longlegs were the variety of spider with a tiny body ,very long, thin legs and the most toxic venom of any spider, except that it doesn't do them much good because their fangs are too small to penetrate mammalian skin. Can someone please put me straight? Also, a description of leatherjackets would be of interest.

Slugs, on the otherhand, I am intimately familiar with. The currently resident boxer is too large to fit through the cat flap, so my back door is left permanently open for his convenience, and slugs take the opportunity to enter the laundry and loo at night. They are always gone again by daylight, leaving behind their slimy calling cards.

The Adelaide Hills are now home to millipedes (introduced to knockoff some pest or other, I believe). Once the rains come (and how they came last night - made me remember how truly woosie british rain is) millipedes appear, quite literally, in their millions. The house that my daughter lives in has rendered walls inside and out, and the first thing to be done on arriving home is to grab a broom and literally sweep the walls clean. The little beasties get into everything - particularly the cat/dog waterbowls, which they must leave with an unpleasant taste/smell, as the water does not get drunk. One morning we went down to check on the horses and literally walked on a carpet of millipedes throughout the house paddock - yuk, yuk, yuk.

xxx

[Ajarn Philip]

I thought that Daddy Longlegs were the variety of spider with a tiny body ,very long, thin legs and the most toxic venom of any spider, except that it doesn't do them much good because their fangs are too small to penetrate mammalian skin. Can someone please put me straight?

You're absolutely right, but in the UK daddy longlegs is the name give to the crane fly.



The leatherjacket? Only too happy to oblige... (Sorry, I've only just worked out how to post photos, and I'm having a great time! Would you like to see my grandchildren...?)

Most venomous?
There is an urban legend stating that daddy long-legs spiders have the most potent venom of any spider, but that their chelicera (fangs) are either too small or too weak to puncture human skin; the same legend is also repeated of the harvestman and crane fly, also called "daddy long-legs" in some locales. Indeed, pholcid spiders do have a short fang structure (called uncate). However, brown recluse spiders also have uncate fang structure, but are able to deliver medically significant bites. Either pholcid venom is not toxic to humans or there is a musculature difference between the two arachnids, with recluses, being hunting spiders, possessing stronger muscles for fang penetration. [1]

In 2004, the Discovery Channel show MythBusters set out to test the daddy long-legs myth (season 1, episode 13 "Buried in Concrete"). After measuring the spider's fangs at approximately 0.25 mm (average human skin thickness varies from about 0.5mm to 4mm), the show's host was apparently bitten, although the bite produced little more than a mild short-lived burning sensation. This appears to confirm the suspicion that pholcids can penetrate human skin, but that their venom is practically harmless to humans. Additionally, recent research by Alan Van Dyke has shown that pholcid venom is actually relatively weak in its effects on insects as well[5].

[blondie95]

I was told yesterday by my mum (who is a gardening and veg growing expert, well in my opinion she is she grows loads) that slugs dont like tomatoe plants- i then informed her the ones in my garden do and they like gravel as they cross a lot of it to get to the tomatoe plants!

[gma]

i then informed her the ones in my garden do and they like gravel as they cross a lot of it to get to the tomatoe plants!

Completely agree, have a green fingered Mum myself and she too has given up on beer and gravel, I think there must be a new mutation of Super Slug about, mine are impervious to any preventative method, are able to do triple jumps over the slug pellets (either that or they sacrifice a few of the weaker ones and then crawl over the debris! Looks like Paschendale on my patio in the mornings!) I have a lawn and an apple tree so I can't even guess where they're going on these night time sorties of theirs! I don't know what they want in here - do they want to watch the Discovery channel? Is there some Super Slug breeding laboratory under my paving slabs? Maybe they're on holiday?! My only joy is to creep out there late in the evening with a ton of salt and take macabre pleasure in 'bubbling' them up which HWMBI says is disgusting!

Have ordered water-in nematodes from Greenfingers (thnx Blondie!) which are, apparantly, minute critturs freeze dried, then raised from the sleeping dead with tap water, watered onto the lawn and then they eat the leatherjacket pupae. Only concern is what happens when they've eaten them all, will I be wailing in year's time about monster nematodes carousing wildly on my patio at night before launching an offensive on the house?

[Ajarn Philip]

Gerrie, please see the following quote from Mikipedia:

Nematodes, while they are known to thrive on crane fly pupae (leatherjackets), should never be used within 100 metres of an apple tree. They will consume the rotting fruit of fallen apples, which then rapidly ferments in their primitive digestive system and becomes extremely toxic.

Apparently, it also makes them grow very large very quickly, extremely aggressive and instils an instinctive sense of rhythm, which results in odd dance-like movements should music be played in the vicinity.

HWMBI

What does the 'I' stand for? Is it a Roman numeral, or does it stand for... Ignored, Irritating, Intimate, Ignited, Indignant, Imbibing, Impudent, Impractical, Impish, Impious, Imprudent, Impertinent... etc.?

[gma]

What does the 'I' stand for? Is it a Roman numeral, or does it stand for... Ignored, Irritating, Intimate, Ignited, Indignant, Imbibing, Impudent, Impractical, Impish, Impious, Imprudent, Impertinent... etc.?

Ignored!

(Only ignited on a bad day!!)

[gma]

Apparently, it also makes them grow very large very quickly, extremely aggressive and instils an instinctive sense of rhythm, which results in odd dance-like movements should music be played in the vicinity.

Sounds like they'll fit in just fine at our parties, just as long as they don't start having their own and not inviting us!!

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Cheers Phil

We find castings from things looking similar to the leather jackets (that was a leather jacket, and not one of your grandchildren?), but they are the pupal cases of great big moths, very imaginatively named Rain Moths because, guess what, they emerge when the rains come.

Should be heaps about - it's been bucketing down for two whole days. Wonder whether the declaration of drought status has been reversed yet.

xx