Fun in the garden [snails for science]

At an awesome conference in January, I met a scientist who studies thermal tolerance in an "invasive" snail species. It was an utterly chance meeting (literally, an elevator conversation), but a fortuitous one for him, because he'd been hoping to find someone living in Texas who could help collect up some of the invasive snails for comparison with snails from regions further north.

Well, I happen to have a healthy population of these snails, happily eating everything in my vegetable garden. So, I gave him my contact information and received details on how to go about collecting and sending off my pesky snails.

The snails love to hang out around the lips of potted plants, so this is perfect habitat for them:


I recently pruned down that Swiss chard plant, which has been contributing to the long-term snail successes. I'm hoping the pruning discourages them. They have even gone after the rhubarb at points. The yogurt tub is sitting next to a chewed-up basil plant, and some of the empty-looking pots are actually the graveyards for pepper plants that got eaten to death by something, snail or otherwise. At least the chocolate peppermint is surviving and the Egyptian walking onions look happy. The pomegranate bush finally has a new set of new leaves (the first ones were killed by the late-season freezing rain), and the same goes for the chiltepin (whew), the Texas lantana, and the Bonsai-style bay bush. Oh, and the fig (not pictured) is beginning to leaf out, and the satsuma (not pictured) is about to flower.

Another spot the snails favor is in the front vegetable beds, among the weedy onion patch:


Here's a close-up of three of them, hiding amongst the weeds. They like to snuggle up along the edging when they're not out ravaging the plants.


I spent about 30 minutes plucking out all the snails I could get my hands on:


And packaged them up with some Swiss chard leaves:


Soon they'll be off to northerly realms.