Sunflowers and Miss Slug

If you have read my blog in the past, you know that we have been gardening quite a bit this spring. Our garden isn't at our house but is at my brother's farm. Sometimes, I have to bring the "gardening" home with me and start some seeds to sprouting at home.

Do you know what this is? Could it be a sunflower- hence the actual "sunflower" seed lying next to the curled up, dead looking, leaf "thingy". Yes, you are right. That there is a sunflower seed. That there dead leaf looking thing is exactly that- a dead, leaf, looking thingy.

Remember Miss slug? You know that cute little critter that the little girl at my house likes to hold in her hands. Can you guess where she spends her extra time when she is not under the flower pot with the roly pollies? She inspects my seed flats. She is quite good at her job too. Unfortunately, I have recently came to understand that slugs love to eat sunflower plants. Yep- they do.

That photo above was taken the day after I first found evidence that Miss slug had been exercising her saliva glands.

This is what Miss slug first started out doing. She was taste testing my sunflower plant. Lovely holes huh? Why are there egg shells all around that plant you say? Well, I had this brilliant idea that maybe egg shells would, kind of, stop Miss slug in her tracks. It was a hopeless cause. Miss slug slid effortlessly across the egg shells and left a gleaming slime trail to prove it. Lesson learned.

Lessons learned:

1. Slugs eat sunflowers
2. Egg shells do nothing to deter slugs from eating sunflowers
3. Slugs get bored living under flower pots and will venture into your seed flats

What did I do with Miss slug? I didn't have the heart to do anything with her since a little girl at my house loves her as a pet. I did take her further away from the house- but her brothers and sisters soon moved in under that flower pot.

You want to know what happened after Miss slug ate my only three sunflower seedlings?

She moved on to the broccoli plant.