For me, containers left on the patio deck generally do not attract slugs/snails. But the containers that are on soil or raised above soil by stands are easily reached by these predators. One idea that I heard of was to put vaseline around the pot for at least 1". The slugs and snails will not pass through this sticky substance. I have used this method and it does work. You just have to apply the vaseline where you will not touch it. It will need reapplying once in a while. And don't forget to consider that the slugs and snails that are on your hosta may already be living in your pot! I remember purchasing a hosta and I kept finding slugs on it. Finally, I removed the hosta from the pot and voila! there they were! Here are other methods to deter snails and slugs for containers. I copied and pasted from the link provided. Here it goes: Gritty substances. The first method for garden snail and slug control is to use a gritty substance. Snails do not travel over gritty substances, such as crushed eggshells or sharp sand, that have been spread around your container plants. Put a layer of grit in your plant containers, and snails will avoid these plants. If they do crawl there, the grit will clog their slime glands and it will kill them. Spread sharp and angular gravel (not smooth rocks) over soil so the snails canâÂÂt climb. All of these gritty substances will irritate the snail and slugâÂÂs delicate undersides. WD-40. To deter snails in your container garden, you can set up barriers around your plants or their containers. For example, you can spray a band of waterproof WD-40 around your containers, and the snails and slugs will be unable to climb up it. WD-40 is waterproof, so it will be effective in the garden even after rain or watering. When spraying the WD-40 around the containers, make sure there are no gaps, as the snails and slugs will climb through any spots youâÂÂve missed. Also protect any plants from the spray by covering them with newspaper or a sheet of plastic. The WD-40 should last an entire season. Copper wire. Another snail barrier is copper wire. Attach copper wire around your plant containers or around a thick plant stem. Because snails have acidic slime, they will get a shock if they touch copper wire. It wonâÂÂt kill them, but it will keep them from climbing up your plant containers or onto your plants, and they will go elsewhere. Hope this helps. Babka, your plants are looking fantastic! Jeffoxtoby, you have provided some good information. In regards to your reference to frogs, I have been told that it is toads that eat a large amount of slugs. Perhaps you can look into that. Here is a link that might be useful: Balcony Container Gardening: 8 Methods for Garden Snail and Slug Control

I don't see any reason you couldn't. If you have a LOT though, crushing too many at once could cause an odor. Snails don't smell very appealing when smooshed. As for the calcium though, yes. Snail shells are filled with calcium, although they will take a while to break down. I add empty shells from deceased aquatic snails (freshwater, not saltwater) all the time when cleaning the aquarium.

I've eaten horse, during the PBB scandal when all the cattle were poisoned and dropping over from PBBs in the cattle feed. LindaC, I bought Pocky at my local Meijer's and sent it to dishesdone, they had a chocolate and a strawberry version. Ashley says she's gotten it at WalMart right next to the college, it's a cookie shaped long and thin, not as big around as a pencil and dipped in chocolate or strawberry fudge. I have eaten crocodile AND alligator, and black pudding which Grandma used to call blood sausage. Nettle tea tastes icky and "green" but is supposed to be a diuretic and make your hair shiny, I can't figure out what the heck those two things have to do with each other, but I've tasted it because it's also supposed to be helpful for anemia. I didn't see that it helped. I had chicken tiki masala at a restaurant in Ann Arbor with Elery. It was basically a chicken dish with a curry kind of sauce over rice. Eh. I'm not a huge fan of curry. Paneer? Elery likes cheese. A lot. So we tried this, it kind of reminded me of the homemade yogurt cheese I make by putting yogurt in a strainer and letting it drain for several hours. Criollo chocolate is just a variety of cocoa bean. It's expensive and I found it to be very mild, I wasn't all that impressed with THAT either. I think I bought it at Fresh Market, and everything there is expensive so maybe that's just why it cost more. Tom Yum is just soup. I think it had coconut milk in it and it kind of reminded me of Chinese hot and sour. Annie

What can I say, this has been the weirdest growing season ever, Brita's Foot Long has really produced lots of beans, lots of seed and is finished pole pulled. Barksdale planted the same day is just flowering now and starting to produce pods, mind you the vines have gone wild, gone up the pole, down the pole, up again and reaching out for anything it could grab hold of like my clothesline. Several other varieties are behaving the same way like they're on steroids. Grandma Nellie's and Frank Barnett are also finished, got a bumper crop of seed from 8 plants planted of both of these. Had a bit of a boo boo with Rattlesnake and Louisiana Snap, the seed looks identical and before I realized what I'd done I threw the first dried seed from L.S. in with the Rattlesnake seed I'd already collected, dumb, dumb, dumb. Oh well lots more pods to pick of Rattlesnake so threw that lot of seed in a jar in the kitchen to be used in some recipe or other. Had a couple of failures but the sample of seed given me could have been old Chevrier Vert didn't germinate and Flaro French Flageolet I ended up with one plant. Surprisingly enough I have a tub of Fagiolina del Traimento producing beans, Yancheng Bush looks healthy enough but hasn't begin to flower yet. The runner I'm growing this year Aeron Purple Star has produced fantastically for me, we've had a few meals and now the rest have been left for seed. I have a few pods that didn't turn Purple and as the vines are so intertwined I couldn't find which plant to pull :). Next year I'll only plant half as many plants with a vulgaris variety in between so I can rouge out anything that only produces green pods, mind you that will probably be too late due to the bees. I'll only plant seed from purple pods and keep my fingers crossed. The first Big Mama I planted turned out to be a purple bush bean not a pole variety, have no idea what they are so will scrap them. I managed to find another source for this Big Mama, although planted late it's almost at the top of it's pole and is flowering so there's hope for this one even if I have to put an umbrella over it in the fall. It seems this is another heirloom that is endangered so will grow it again next year. Bosnian Pole is producing lots of beans, not quite at the full bean stage, my trial of the 3 different Tennessee Cutshorts is just about ready for picking and comparing and the samples of quite a few of the other beans I'm growing, seed already picked. I'll come back later with final results, lots of beans at different stages of development yet to report on. This has been one H*ll of a summer I have to admit the heat has been knocking the stuffing out of me, yeah I know the 90's are just warm to some of you but when you are used to most of the summer being in the low 70's it makes a difference. On the the other hand when we were in Arizona one December temps were in the mid 70's during the day and we were all hitting the pool at the motel we were staying at :) the residents all thought we were crazy. They were all sitting around bundled up and some even wore socks to bed at night to keep their feet warm, or so we were told. it's all what you're used too. Annette