Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: annieanne49 on June 28, 2016, 19:51

Title: Spanish slugs?
Post by: annieanne49 on June 28, 2016, 19:51
Can anyone tell me if this is one of those Spanish slugs. Found it on my wheelie bin which I use as a garden compost bin and there's a few more inside it yuk
Title: Re: Spanish slugs?
Post by: lettice on June 29, 2016, 08:37
That just looks like a normal common garden slug. They are either black or red (red to orange) with an orange fringe. They can grow to 5 inches.

The Spanish slug is brown and about 3 1/2 inch to 4 1/2 inch.
Good video that shows its colour and head.
azeU7SWmIc8
There is a good identification guide for slugs here;
http://www.slugwatch.co.uk/?page_id=21
Title: Re: Spanish slugs?
Post by: MalcW on June 29, 2016, 09:23
Presumably, after we leave the EU, Spanish slugs won't have automatic right of entry to the UK.
Title: Re: Spanish slugs?
Post by: Goneterseed on June 29, 2016, 11:51
Punishable by squashing.
Title: Re: Spanish slugs?
Post by: BumbleJo on June 29, 2016, 12:52
 :D :D :D
Title: Re: Spanish slugs?
Post by: Hester Winterbourne on September 24, 2016, 09:01
This slug (or its relatives) has been living in my compost heap for several years.  I'm kind of reluctant to kill it, but it does look very like a Spanish slug.  So does the one at the top of the thread, you can just see it's little dark horns peeping out.  I don't know who the culprits are who eat everything I leave un-protected in the garden, and who coated the tent in slime, but if this big slug is in fact eating other slugs and keeping some sort of balance, I don't want to kill it.  I kind of get the impression from what I read that if it was Spanish, I would be overrun with thousands of them by now. 

Verdict?
Title: Re: Spanish slugs?
Post by: sunshineband on September 24, 2016, 16:23
This slug (or its relatives) has been living in my compost heap for several years.  I'm kind of reluctant to kill it, but it does look very like a Spanish slug.  So does the one at the top of the thread, you can just see it's little dark horns peeping out.  I don't know who the culprits are who eat everything I leave un-protected in the garden, and who coated the tent in slime, but if this big slug is in fact eating other slugs and keeping some sort of balance, I don't want to kill it.  I kind of get the impression from what I read that if it was Spanish, I would be overrun with thousands of them by now. 

Verdict?

I agree with you Hester -- we have had these huge bad boys for years, and deal with them by torchlight to keep their numbers down. I try not to take them to the plot in the compost bucket as it seems silly to import slugs there to add to the normal population
Title: Re: Spanish slugs?
Post by: Yorkie on September 24, 2016, 18:48
I agree too.

It's got the 'saddle' and the size / colour - http://www.slugwatch.co.uk/?portfolio=spanish-slug
Title: Re: Spanish slugs?
Post by: Hester Winterbourne on September 25, 2016, 08:43
OK it is war on the big grey ones with stripy skirts. Fortuitously it rained last night and there were loads of them rampaging round the lawn, so a basin of boiling water has done for that lot, but I fear I will never win as they must have been procreating like mad in the meantime...
Title: Re: Spanish slugs?
Post by: Yorkie on September 26, 2016, 21:17
 :lol:

Sounds like war for sure  :lol: