The Curse of the Dill Beast

Some creature keeps eating my dill seedlings just as they sprout. It's making crazy! I think the fiend is either a snail, a slug, or a cutworm. But those three things are really ugly. So I put a picture up of this hilarious karate hamster from cuteoverload.com instead. Let me tell you what's been going on, while I share some more pictures of things that are cuter than garden pests (all images totally stolen from cute overload)...

The slugs and snails have really been going to town on my garden this winter. I've been finding them everywhere after the rains. They're gigantic and disgusting, unlike the adorable animals in these photos. I don't mind a few holes in leaves here and there. But they've been eating the dill seedlings down to the ground before they ever have a chance.

I never use regular snail bait because all that does is kill your pets, wildlife, and some children. Seriously it's really dangerous because they bait the snail poison with stuff that smells good to dogs, cats, little kids who eat stuff they find outside, and other mammals. Just a little can kill you fast. This is why it's also important to not let your pets and kids sniff around other people's yards and eat stuff off the ground. You never know what they've used. I think it should be banned. Especially since I learned there's a non-toxic alternative that works just as well called Sluggo. Seriously, why is regular poisonous snail bait still legal if the non-toxic and organic stuff works just as well at getting rid of slugs? Does not compute.

Well I've got my own bottle of Sluggo now. So this weekend I'm going to sow some more dill seeds, make a cardboard collar to keep out cutworms, and totally cover the area with Sluggo to keep the slugs at bay. I really hope this works. My scrambled eggs have been so boring without dill.

-J

P.S. In case you really really needed to see a picture of a snail because you don't know what they look like, here you go: