Anyone else have these little beasts in their garden?
Tropical snails (photo)
That is a big snail!! Gosh, I am glad we don't have those here in Cayman....we have enough trouble with Honduran Iguanas!!!
How do you get shed of the nasty buggers????
john
Jenny - When we see shells like that, they are usually inhabited by hermit crabs. I did find some tiny little snails on my hydrangea, but no where near that big. My DD was visited by a coconut crab that tried to make off with her husbands fishing pole!
That's funny about the crab!! Must have wanted to go fishing.
Nina said it looks like it wanted to eat the pole!
LOL!! Wonder what he put on there to make it attractive to the crab?
Coconut crabs have been known to eat patio furniture....spare tires....your average moody teenager. They are mean beasties, and very big! Body averages the size of a large man's hand - claw - well - they break open coconuts ....
I hope I never encounter one. lol
Jenny....sorry we got off track there.....so do you get a lot of those snails? What do you do about them? I've heard egg shells keep them off plants - the sharp edges cut up their soft bodies, so they avoid them.
Yes, I have tons of them. I am starting to make a dent in the population by hand picking and with bait. Egg shells didn't seem to make much of a difference...clearing the litter as we make new beds seems to help too.
Our biggest problem is slugs - hate, hate, hate them! They go for everything! Has anyone ever seen them climbing up a plant? I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them three feet up the trunk of a brugmansia heading for the leaves. I have made lava walls around the gardens which gives them a lovely place to hang out during the day, so now I bait along the walls every couple of nights. Can't believe I am the person who goes out in the morning and revels in counting how many have bit the dust, so unlike me to enjoy killing anything.
We also have centepedes too, nasty creatures with a very painful bite. Ah well - I guess there are "serpents" in every paradise!
I am so enjoying this forum, love the outstanding photos! So happy to see folks from other areas coming to visit the tropics..
Aloha to all..
Jenny
Yes - isn't it fun that we have so many participants?! I just wish the lurkers would join in more. Oh I hate centipedes! Haven't noticed any here though, thank goodness. I have no idea where the little snails that were on my hydrangea came from, or where they went - haven't seen any more - but boy I sure keep looking. I know what you mean about "not like me", I am a certified peacenik from waaaay back....but some pests get no quarter from me, I'm viscious! Then I am astonished that I did that!
Jenny...be careful about those snails (African Moon Snails I think they are called)... they and that wierd pseudosnail carry that rat lungs' disease....sort of like meningitis. WASH your garden vegies with clorox in the water...that is how the disease is 'ingested'. We have them too...lots of them this year...and I kill them toute de suite with no remorse!!!
Try the aluminum can strip around the bottom of the trunk...we had slugs stripping the bark off our citrus trees!!!!
Carol
Oh Carol! Thanks for the warning, I had no idea they could be so dangerous! I will be extra careful with the fruit and veggies for sure, what nasty little beasts!
I'll have a go at the aluminum strips, I have tried the copper strips which were quite expensive. It's hard to say what is acually working as I have been really going at them full guns. I have certainly killed tons of what I think are slug eggs, so perhaps I am making some headway against future generations. Fancy them stripping the bark off the citrus - these are no ordinary critters!
On Tuesday I collected a whole mess of slugs and droppped them into water in a bucket to drown. Completely forgot about them when I went in to answer the phone. Can you imagine what the contents of that bucket was like when I found it this morning.... Oh Lord, I can still smell it!
Jenny
I
Jenny....I cut the strips off the can and then wind them, not really tight, around the base of the plant/tree and fasten them with a paper clip. pretty soon they don't mess with it.
Boy Carol....you have sure scared me into paying closer attention! I know what I'll be doing this afternoon! Welcome back! And how was the visit???
After that description I just had to go google that Coconut Crab .... What a Monster! And, I read something about them being on the endangered list:
Look at this guy!
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/invertebrates_terrestrial_and_freshwater/Birgus_latro/GES008535.html
When we were on Suvarov (World Heritage Site belongs to the Cook Islands), we were given a Coconut Crab as a going away present by the caretakers. Well...he lived on the stern of the boat clinging to his pole...so tenaciously, he never dropped off. They can sever a finer in a blink! But...MAN O MAN was he delicious!!!! Almost too rich!
I suspect they are now endangered...they are very hard to find...and with more and more tourism the smaller ones are being hunted. This one weighed about 5 lbs!!!
Edited to say that I had a wonderful visit, Shari... My granddaughter is a love and we actually FED the giraffs at the Seattle Zoo. I got some new clothes, ate artichokes and Tuscan Melons and was so happy to get home!!!! I feel like a stranger in a strange land when I go back...wierd.
This message was edited Jun 29, 2007 7:31 PM
Not wierd...I understand completely! You should see me in a typical stateside grocery store....I can stand and stare at a whole isle of cereal for an hour! And cookies! My God....how in the world do they come up with so many?!? And traffic! I start white-knuckling it when DH gets to 35! But so glad you had a good trip! I just love the Seattle area! Did you ever see the show Northern Exposure? It was filmed in Rosslyn as a standin for Alaska. One of our favorite day trips was out to Rosslyn - had a drink in the bar and met a pet wolf, took our pics in front of the Moose....it was a blast!
Lin - Yup! That's our local monster! People think we are exaggerating - but they are called coconut crabs for a reason!
Jenny - I know that smell - we get it when the neighbors are letting the ants get rid of the critters in the pretty shells they want to keep. YYYYUUUCCCKKK!
I hear you, Shari!! When we arrived in Panama after the whole Central America flog and NO chance to supply... I went to the 'supermarket' (tiny by our standards) and got stuck looking at the selection of capers!!! It blew my mind SO totally. Who needs that much choice???? Needlesstosay, I left without buying anything, my heart rate was over the top and I went to bed!!! It was exhausting!!! Hilo is a bit better so I don't go into much culture shock 'over there'...but it is tiring!!!
That snail is down right scary! I thought ours got big but they are only half that size. But the bananna slugs here make up for it.
A crab that can crack open a coconut...I don't think I want to meet him unless it is served hot on a plate!
But the funniest thing on this thread is hearing someone that finds supermarkets that have too many choices. Here you can stand in a produce department stacked high with fruits and veggies from around the world as well as local crops and it never fails that you will need/want that one thing they do not have.
AlohaHoya, glad to hear your trip was safe and that you managed to swim back to the islands and home. Cause there's no place like home!
AMEN, Zanymuse...amen!
Know what I miss the most about the state's? Farmer's Markets. Hand's down - that's what I miss the most.
Yep!! The best thing around here besides more land, mountains, lakes and other natural features.
Well, there is THAT, but I've got the ocean and the lagoon for natural features. I here all my friends and neighbors complaining about no shopping, and I just laugh. I hate shopping! But I can spend all day at a farmer's market!
Yeah, the farmers are more than happy to talk and pass on knowledge. And they HAVE knowledge!!!! Go to a chain store and alot of the employees don't know anything about what is being sold there.
Shari...you have to come here on a Sunday. We have a HUGE FM on the Hawaiian Homelands...EVERYthing you can imagine!!!!
Oh, I repeat.....I am soooo jealous!!!
Do you have mosquitos?
By the thousands! They spray, and then the darn things bite more than ever!
Mosquitos? 4 different ones....I try to be indoors after 3 pm when a particularly vicious one comes out!!! They are, what I consider, the serpent in paradise!!!
I just avoid being out at dusk and later otherwise I am bitten everywhere. I learned my lesson a long time ago. And I don't sit in the grass either or else I will get bitten by chiggers.
They bite here, morning, noon and night. I spray myself with Off in the morning...still get bit, after lunch....still get bit, and burn citronella candles and spray myself at night and still get bit. My daughter says her legs look like she has chicken pox....so we now call it skeeterpox!
Be careful of the West Nile virus. Chances are probably slim in your area but it never hurts to watch for the signs.
Yep....I think that's what they are spraying for.
Hyperdermic Needles with wings!!! Cayman sprays too!!! The spray plane pilots can sub as crop dusters....we even had some cruise ship passengers write to the paper when they returned to where they came from offering concern that the kamakazi pilot in the yellow plane got too close to their cruise ship.....maybe that's why they move on before the sun goes down....this is going down the wrong path but spraying by plane is welcomed if you want to sit on your porch at any point in the evening....those of us that count on cistern water, we turn the downspouts out before the first rain to rinse the tin roof off, then try to follow the spray schedule so the spray doesn't end up in the water.....a mozzie has never bitten me in my stomach from the inside.....the brand of beer that comes in a green bottle is said to be made with formaldehyde (sp) and that doesn't stop anyone from drinking them...they just don't ro...never mind...
from the inside!!!! LOL! I just wish the spray's they use out here worked! It never seems to do anything but them off!
I don't have too many mosquitos as we are on the dry side of the island, and it doesn't rain very often. We do get a population explosion after it rains but a spray round the garden once or twice seems to work okay. I understand it is a different problem on the Hanna side, as with Carol on her side of the big island.
I do have two ponds but they have constantly moving water in them. The hundreds of guppies in one of the ponds are supposed to take care of the mozzie larva too.
Has anyone found that after a year or so living in the tropics that you become sort of immune to the bites? When I first came here the mozzies smelt English blood a mile off and my mother and I had bites that would itch for hours and we would have to practically bath in pink stuff - now they only itch mildly, and then only for a few minutes. Anyone else noticed this or have we just turned sour in our old age?
Doesn't seem to matter as far as I'm concerned...but then, I've only been here for 10 months so far this time. But where ever I am, they bite me, and not my husband, so he says he keeps me around to protect him.
LOL! Just proves you are a sweet person! Like your husband's thinking, bait!
He says when they can bite something that taste's good, why would they bother a sourpuss like him?