The problem with having slugs in your compost is that they will lay their eggs in it, it doesn't take much working out what's going to happen when you use that compost to plant your nice flowers and veg in?

Well quite possibly - but that's no reason to not have a compost heap, the benefits far outweigh any disadvantages - after all, you'd still have slugs and snails even if you didn't have a compost heap.

When I find eggs I leave them on the surface of the soil for the birds. They show up quite well, white and shiny with lots all together. If there are slugs in the compost you spread you'll probably see most of them as you spread it. I think its worth a few slugs to improve the soil with the compost.

Yup...I have not got a compost heap or a slug problem...but as Bamboo says....I have snails galore.

Do other people find that you have mostly one or the other? In Stafford we had far too many snails, which I used to collect up in a supermarket bag when they were hibernating and put in the wheelie bin, on the grounds that if they were fast asleep they wouldn't notice.(Seriously, you could fill a bag with them) Here we seem to have the full range of slugs and only a few snails. The thrushes deal with the hibernating snails here!

What I do with snails is collect the all up, especially the big ones on a wet day, put them in a wooden box with oats for a couple of weeks to purge out all the toxins then cook them with garlic. Don't tell me this is gross. Hey! the French have the right idea.

Maybe that's what I should do Myron..A snail farm!

well it seems you've all pondered this situation at some time or another, and steragram mirrors my thoughts and actions perfectly, maybe it's that we are not too far away,don't seem to have had many slugs or snails this year,but it has been one of the dryest i can remember, but neither of my neighbours garden so i assume thats where the little blighters have being hiding. trying to attract some birds back to the garden, but lots of local feline population and bullying pigeons seem to have seen them off?

Every time I see a slug in the garden, I sprinkle a little salt on it. Snails get similar treatment or get thrown in the road or on a flat garage roof for the thrushes. Five years ago, I was almost overrun with snails; this year there were very few.
And not one thrush has complained that they come ready salted :-)

Put some soot in the compost heap. It will get rid of the wildlife, and benefit your soil later on.

Hold on a minute there Dianebulley - soot WILL get rid of the wildlife - including the brandling worms which are there to turn all that garden waste into compost. Slug eggs can be found in any border if you dig it over at this time of year - what's a few more in a compost heap? No point in worrying about it, there are plenty of other beneficial organisms in the compost which you really don't want to destroy.

I emptied a compost bin today and only found one lot of slug eggs. Myron I know you sometimes have your tongue in your cheek and I sincerely hope that is the case this time. Garlic potatoes are really much nicer. Don't encourage Pimpernel please.
Kev, I don't live in Staffs any more - it was snails there, and slugs here. Incidentally I do like your pic of Toto!

Au contraire, I'm being totally serious. The brown and yellow striped garden snails are actually the same mollusks as Escargot in French cuisine. The common garden snail is the European brown - Helix aspersa. Snails are hermaphroditic, so they reproduce like crazy so that's why we have so many, so why not eat them? They are delicious and nutritious.

So popular is snail hunting in mainland Europe that Switzerland has completely banned it to protect stocks and from April to June in France you can only gather snails for personal use. It's just that we seem to be a bit squeemish when it comes to eating them.

You have to starve them for a few weeks to get rid of any poisonous plants that they would have eaten though.

Poor little beggars...

I shall definitely be giving that one a miss but thank you for the instructions! I only tasted snail once and thought it was like tenderised rubber with garlic butter, hence the suggestion to use potatoes instead! If I'd known that it had been starved for a few weeks first i wouldn't even have gone that far. Its like battery hens...

But you would use slug pellets and or salt ?

Remember that snails and slugs can survive for weeks without food in cold freezing weather....Where as it's a long slow death by salt and pellet.

think i'll carry on with the slug/snail hunt as i'm accustomed to, maybe plant some marigolds near the compost heap as they seem to attack them before anything else, so will get a bit of warning that they're around? must admit that when i asked the question, never guessed that the responses would be both informative and amusing [ should've known better] great site and variety of people make the winter months easier to tolerate

You're right Pimpernel. I think think that we should eat garden snails rather than poison them. Common garden snails are the type most cultivated for gourmet food and are known as petit gris in France.

You don't starve them as such Steragram, just pop them into a container for 3 days with a little water to keep them moist. Clean the tub and the snails every day and then on the 4th day feed them a carrot. When there poo turns orange they will be free from all toxins. They will die happy after a really good meal instead of a slow death. They taste better than any farmed supermaket snails. Pure organic protein!... And such a sustainable food too.

Apparently, they're popular in Somerset whre they are known as "Mendip Wallfish" (what a super name). Unlike the French recipe for snails, there is no garlic in the Somerset version. The butter is flavoured only with herbs and seasoning.

Slugs are another "Garden Pest" that can be eaten if treated right. I'm told that they taste somewhat similar to clams and make a nice chowder. It's the thought of eating slugs that puts people off and the mention of the name causes revultion. I think that if we called them a fancy French name it wouldn't sound as bad. How about Escargot sans shell au jardin ;o)

How about "Escargots sans frontiers"?

Hahaha... I like that one. What a play on words. Nice

Well you did saw several weeks, not three or four days.
Sorry I still can't face the idea - I don't even eat shellfish. My OH.s father always used to say "If it hasn't got a backbone David, don't eat it!" Maybe if things get very bad and I am starving I will remember your advice though! Until then they are Escargots pas pour moi.

Ooh, I love prawns and scampi, lobster and crab, fabulous - but I loathe calamari (rubber bands in sauce) and I have not much doubt that snails would have a similar texture.

They sell Escargot in Lidl now and then, maybe they will take off and I can make a small fortune

Well Pimpernel, I'll certainly be gathering some next year. I will probably freeze a load for the winter.

I remember some advice given to me by a survival instructor years ago when I was in the army. He told me that he couldn't think of an animal, bird, fish or insect, etc, in the British Isles that can't be eaten as long as it's cleaned/prepared/cooked correctly. Worms, rats, seagulls and even bees.

He also told me to always eat any of these if they are available in preference to any plants as it's safer. makes sense, as there's lots of plants that will do you harm or even kill you. And anyway, a human wouldn't survive very long without protein.

I'm prepared to accept that, in a crisis and were I starving, I'd eat anything at all, Myron, even slugs, rats and snails if that's all there was. Wouldn't like it, but I'd do it...

I understand where you're coming from. But I sometimes think it's a crazy world that we live in.

We have lots of wild animal life that is a source of sustainable good edible food. What do we do? We kill them off because they eat our crops. We poison the snails to stop them eating our plants and we introduced myxomatosis to eradicate rabbits so they won't eat the lettuce, etc. Then what do we do?.... Intensively farm chickens under inhumane conditions, bread lambs and then slaughter them at 3 weeks old and force feed geese until their livers swell up to 3 times it's normal size to make Foie gras for food! Etc, etc. It doesn't seem right to me.

Well yes it is crazy - except that, in UK, we don't produce foie gras because of the force feeding - in France, they carry on regardless, and that's where most of any foie gras available here comes from.

Yes! they do. But as long as people still buy it over here and the rest of the world there will always be a market for it Bamboo. I think it's wrong, but HEY! who are we to make it right?

It's funny you should mention foie gras right now though Myron - I've not heard it mentioned for years, but I got an email 2 days ago from my French sister in law (living in Cambridge now) wondering what food she should do on Boxing Day when we visit, and did I like foie gras? And now you mention it too - I told her I thought it was the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten when I was 18 and didn't know what it was - having found out, I have never eaten it since on principle, and wasn't about to start now. Next thing you know she'll be asking if I like veal!

Or SNAILS?

I remember once telling a friend over from Sweden we were having toad in the hole. The horrified look on his face was a picture (he thought he would be eating real toads of course)

Snails, ha ha - I think she's well aware that's not something we'd eat, I have a feeling she doesn't like them much herself. She, like me, isn't a lover of chewy, slimy things such as mussels and oysters, never mind calamari and snail.

Myron, I have just been talking to KarenFranceAfrica re her Photo Allamanda cathartica.... Any way google Google giant african snail to see what she eats from her garden....

Two would fill a carrier bag!!!

Just had a look Bamboo. now THAT'S what I call a snail. They are about as big as giant Conch. I ate one when I was in Florida... YUMEE. I wonder if you can get African snails over here? I'de love to try one.

Hi! Pimernel sent me! Like you, Myron, I have been collecting and eating snails in France for the last few years. We use corn meal there to purge them for a week or ten days and then do the garlic thing. Lovely! But it is forbidden in the summer months because of farming pesticides.

The African ones which I had in a restaurant, with chilli-pepper sauce tasted quite good - but they were tough. Our stewardess says that they will be lovely and tender when she cooks them as she thinks they were underdone. I haven't found any of my own yet, though! lol!

I thought that in France you couldn't take them in summer from the wild to protect them? I can't see pesticides being a problem if they are purged, and if that was the case, they would still have it in them in autumn when they are large and best to eat?

I use oats to purge them, or a little water for a few days then give them a bit of carrot or lettuce until they are clean.

Reading up on them, I don't think it will be long before they're domiciled over here, which I think would be bad. Florida have a problem with them and are trying to eradicate them as they eat the fruit.

You may well be right, Myron...it was my elderly French neighbours who taught me what to do and when/why not to do it. I didn't think to question them.

I've asked around about how African cooks purge their snails but I only get blank or baffled looks...then they talk about salt water and boiling...

If I get any more info, I'll pass it on :)