"Douglas" wrote in message news:...

"Steve Harris" wrote in message
...
In article ,
(Douglas) wrote:

I don't have slugs or snails any more. I have a small pond which I
have seeded with frogs and toads

Is it really that effective?

Steve Harris - Cheltenham - Real address steve AT netservs DOT com
A useful bit of gardening software at http://www.netservs.com/garden/

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What can't speak can't tell lies!.
For ten years |I have been almost free of slugs and snails yet the
incubation period for toads and frogs is about a month in the spring. You
have to seed the pond with taddies for three years to get it going.
Strange thing has happened this year. Not a sign in the pond of a toad or
a
frog.
I can't understand it. There have been seven goldfish in there since it
was
built and hey are still thriving.
Doug.
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Waal!, it's a funny business, and I think I may have confused you, so
apologies if I have.
You see, the spawn is seen in in the pond in early spring, even when it's
still coldish weather.
So the frogs and toads have come back from where they've been living, (that
sounds a bit pompous, but please read on). and I don't know where that is
living area is.. Probably an occasional one in surrounding gardens or mostly
out in the fields
Briefly, - they come, they spawn, the taddies swim around and around the
pond then grow legs. After about three weeks they all disappear in one day -
or night. Suddenly they have all scarpered!.
Then I see a few small ones poking around the undergrowth and get reports
from neighbours of their presence for a few days, then silence until next
year. I occasionally see an adult one knocking about for awhile, - that's
all.
My conclusion is that the blackbirds, and such, do a nice cleaning up job
and decimate them and as time has gone on the surviving numbers have been
reduced, to an extent that this year there are no survivors to return to
spawn. I still have to dispose of a small number of snails, but a few of
the small white ones that live under the soil seem to be unaffected.
So what to do? - re-seed again?, - can't do that because the Authorities
have barred the public from estuary area where I get the taddies from,
because the foreign chinese Cocklers have taken over the beaches in their
hundreds and are raping the Cockle beds by the hundreds of tons for selling
abroad. That means the narrow approach road is blocked with big heavy
lorries.
But that's another story.
Take care!
Doug.