It’s a funny thing with snails. When the warm summer days arrive, you do not see a single snail, but let there be rain and they appear from nowhere: not just one or two, but a tribe in all sorts of colours and sizes. Actually we have more slugs than snails in our garden. They are much the same, but are the naked variety without the house on their back.Of course they have it easy, no men or women, just unisex so they can to it all all on their own. Although I did discover once that you need two snails to make a family, although I have no idea of the mechanics.

I used to throw pellets to get rid of them but no longer. They have a right to enjoy the rainy days and nature takes care of itself. I have a plant in the garden called allium siculum, a relation of the garlic I suppose. It does smell quite strong.

It grows annually and it seems to keep the snails away from the plants. It just appeared on its own one day.

And then I have a snail that eats other snails.

It lives in the darkness of my raised bed between the stones. You rarely see him, but when the gardener arrives, he gets disturbed and comes out to see what it happening. Apparently his name is Leopard Slug and the nice thing is it eats other smaller slugs – a cannibal, but he is also one of the reasons why I no longer poison the slugs, they have their own system it seems. The Leopard Slug is twice as big as other slugs, but it keeps itself to itself.

And just to complete the picture, here is one of our local snails with a house on its back.