HelpfulGardener.com

I learned something tonight. Every time I take the dogs out one last time before going to bed, I carry a flashlight and trowel with me and look for slugs. I noticed I have more slugs in our herb garden than our hosta beds. I also noticed we have more frogs/toads (sorry, I don't know the difference) in our herb garden too. Tonight when we came back in I Googled "Do frogs eat slugs". Yes, they do!! I think from now on I'll just wait and see if/when I notice any damage on the plants before I kill anymore slugs. Gotta keep those frogs/toads around! (And here I thought our plants were doing good because of my night hunting...... )

Another reason to keep away from chemicals.

I found out that those pesky grackles that are nothing but nuisance for emptying out my bird feeders and trashing the birdbaths by dunking stale bread in the water (my neighbor ) do serve a useful function in the garden after all.

The other morning, through a window, I watched one tossing the mulch around, then chomping down on something. When it raised it's head, I saw white froth coating the side of its beak, so I really think it must've found one of the thumb-sized slugs.