the snails and the slugs and the caterpillars

yemanja

i have a garden where i am trying to grow a few vegetables..the garden is regularly attacked by all sorts of insects and i have a real invasion of snails.. i do not like to kill and i have a tenderness for all animals, i have respect for their life and their innocence.. what am i supposed to do? everytime i find a snail eating my pakchoi plants i do not have the heart to harm it! i am conscious i have to set up tracks to drawn the snails if i want to eat vegetables.. this is definitely against my principles but i must also eat .. what are your comments about that?

Mountains

You can put a firring strip around the plot and put a strip of thin copper on it. It will stop slugs & snails cold and won't kill them.

Hanzze

Where does the copper and firring come from? *smile*

federica

Snails and slugs have a 2-mile radius homing instinct.
Your other solution is to do slug/snail raids in the evening - when they're most active - and put them all into a large bucket (with a cover!). Something like a catering-size mayonnaise tub.... Get one from a local restaurant, or something.
Then, go out by torchlight - and collect them.
Then, drive off for over 2 miles and drop them off somewhere secluded, like a wood or a field.
This will be a long, tedious, repetitive task, but it's the only way.

Hanzze

Walking is good. *smile* Great hint! Thanks for the share.

prettyhowtown

Apparently planting garlic is supposed to repel slugs and snails. I have noticed that they touch everything in my garden EXCEPT the garlic plants so i have planted them around my green veggies. We shall see what happens!

Mountains

Where does the copper and firring come from? *smile*

Any good DIY store

Hanzze

Yes, yes, I know building center - Buddhism well. Actually people love to make things to there project *smile* There is no problem with it, not seen, not heard and the electricity comes out of the socket. Nothing could be wrong with it, we pay monthly for it, and the money comes from the cash machine.
Its actually easy to keep precepts in our building center world. *smile* Eco-me!

ajnast4r

i was going to post this same topic last night! thank you

my girlfriend goes out every night and picks the tomato bugs, snails and slugs off our vegetables... this has been somewhat effective but obviously isnt sustainable if you dont enjoy doing that like she does lol

for snails & slug copper tape will keep them away, wrap a strip around each pot or around the entire area. crushed eggshells will also keep them away.

there are certain types of plants that both repel pest and attract the pests natural predators... you would have to look up the specifics.

for other bugs... there is a natural pesticide made of thyme,rosemary and peppermint essential oils that repels most bugs. it also kills them so be careful... if you are very careful not to spray any bugs, but just spray your pots it will keep them away without killing them. i dont know the name off the top of my head but if you want let me know and ill go outside and find it.

yemanja

thank you all for your answers, but my question was slightly different: morally is it right to kill the snails that eat my vegetables?is it right to kill an animal when it is affecting my life?for example will you kill the mosquito that is in your bedroom or the spiders in your living room or the roaches on your kitchen counter?i am living in some hills in the middle of nature and it is difficult for me not to kill insects and other living things that at some point are becoming a nuisance..for example some big red ants sometimes are invading the house and they bite hard,it is impossible to do something else than spraying them, for example also something called a centipede that is biting very hot, when one enters the house i am killing it, when a wax is there also in the liviong room i am killing it..i mean i am protecting myself, when they are in the wild i do not harm them, but there is a time when they are a nuisance and i have to kill them.especially when they come inside the house.i have hundreds of little spiders in the house, i do not know what to do.everyday i have to take out the spiderwebs! for the garden it is really difficult cause all around it is pure bush with millions of insects and thousands of snails..if you want to use the organic recipes it is going to be very costly.. one month ago i saw some cabbage seeds nothing is left from the suckers..i am really wondering if i do not have to put my principles aside.. what are you doing if the mosquito is on your arm biting you? do you kill him?

dorje

You do what you have to do.

Sometimes you might need to kill them if it brings harm to you and your family. It's not as if you are killing because you delight in the act.

By all means, try non-violent means first. When all else fails, maybe you might need to be a little bit violent, if only to protect your family and yourself.

person

I'm sorry to say that its still negative karma even if they're being a nuisance. You can still decide to kill them anyway of course, often there are non violent means to deal with the problem though generally more difficult and time intensive than spraying or squashing.

For the mosquitos you can just blow or brush them off. Ants gather where there's food so keep the place clean. Spiders can be dealt with using a glass and a piece of paper then just through them outside, this takes constant effort. I tend to let spiders that are hiding in out of the way corners stay to help take care of the stray ants that roam around. :hrm: And there was lots of good advice for slugs in the garden. Buddhists have been dealing with this issue for a while and there are lots of good techniques if you ask.

Mountains

HHDL said that the prohibition against killing should not be taken to extremes. For example, if you had bedbugs in your bed, as a Buddhist it's still okay to get rid of them so they don't bite you all night. If you have lice in your hair, you get rid of them. If you have intestinal parasites, you get rid of them.

The majority of our common garden pests don't really destroy the whole crop of whatever we plant, so just let them have a little of your bounty. If there's a tomato with a hole in it, cut out that part and don't eat it. The rest of the tomato is still fine (I do that all the time). An ear of nice sweet corn wouldn't be the same without the corn borer worm in the top of the husk. That just proves that it's organic!

compassionate_warrior

HHDL said that the prohibition against killing should not be taken to extremes. For example, if you had bedbugs in your bed, as a Buddhist it's still okay to get rid of them so they don't bite you all night. If you have lice in your hair, you get rid of them. If you have intestinal parasites, you get rid of them.

I've never heard this particular DL quote. This is so helpful!

Some garden pests can be handled by planting plants they have an aversion to. For example, planting marigolds keeps the aphids off the roses. Garlic repels something, I forget what. For slugs you can get a low barrier at the garden store, and encircle your planting bed with it. With a little online research, you may be able to come up with similar organic ways of protecting your plants.

lufool

You would kill a bear if it was your only chance at survival and there were no other options.

This is a far more extreme scenario than the one that you prompted but there are certain boundaries when living things live together. I hate killing animals when I dont have to. But if I see a black widow in my house, it's dead.

Cinorjer

Snails and slugs have a 2-mile radius homing instinct.
Your other solution is to do slug/snail raids in the evening - when they're most active - and put them all into a large bucket (with a cover!). Something like a catering-size mayonnaise tub.... Get one from a local restaurant, or something.
Then, go out by torchlight - and collect them.
Then, drive off for over 2 miles and drop them off somewhere secluded, like a wood or a field.
This will be a long, tedious, repetitive task, but it's the only way.

OK, now I just gotta know what scientist actually set up an experiment to see what sort of homing range a snail or slug has. I have a vision of tiny little tags and the scientists scattering the snails all over the landscape. One month later, the first set of snails arrive back at their home from a hundred feet away. A year later, the snails from a mile away start showing up. But by then the funding for the experiment has been spent, the scientists have gotten bored with the experiment and say, "The heck with it. Just tell people two miles is good enough. It will take the slugs years to make it back from that far away, so who's going to know any difference?"

Cinorjer

Yemanja, the prohibition against killing in Buddhism is an important one. However, this one rule is responsible for turning Buddhism into a two class religion, where laypeople struggling to live a normal life are told they must put up with the pests and bugs that destroy their crops and carry disease and sometimes make their life miserable.

According to this way of looking at the world, our campaign in South America to eliminate the malaria carrying mosquito that has saved millions of lives is bad karma. Hey, we killed billions of bugs! Something is wrong with this picture of what it means to be a Buddhist, because it sets the rules up as more important than the people who are supposed to be helped by them.

Compassion trumps rules. The minute you think the rules are more important than one suffering human being, you have strayed from the Dharma.

So we don't like to kill even bugs. We can try to find ways around it, but it's not that simple. You can't spend all your time trying to catch and release mice and snails and flies. The rules are not more important than your well being. Keep a balanced outlook on what you do.

lufool

Dead on. ^

person

To try to expand a bit on what @cinorjer said, Buddhist ethics is more about virtue ethics than rule based. Virtue ethics means that the main focus is on making the individual into a more virtuous person so that they can make a decision based on the unique circumstances of a particular situation rather than trying to apply some cookie cutter rule.

So while killing in general is negative, the specific conditions of a situation may mean that what is for the greatest good causes some harm. This can be a slippery slope and doesn't lend itself to a set of rules that can necessarily be applied to a different situation. A person who has highly developed wisdom and compassion is able to make an appropriate decision for the situation.

However, we're not one of those people so we should try to stick as close to the rules as possible and do our best to develop in ourselves more wisdom and compassion so we can make better decisions.

federica

OK, now I just gotta know what scientist actually set up an experiment to see what sort of homing range a snail or slug has.

have a look here....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10856523

The reason I said two miles is because I tried the same thing:
I took a whole bucketload of snails, covered the shells in Sally Hansen Hard as Nails varnish, and took them off two miles away.
Three weeks later, I found one in my front garden.
Now, I'm no scientist, and I'm not saying I conducted the experiment in lab conditions - but I know for a fact that I had no escapees, and that the returned snail was one of the ones I painted.

Just take them a bit further away that you think necessary. That's all I can say........

Mountains

OK, now I just gotta know what scientist actually set up an experiment to see what sort of homing range a snail or slug has.

I have a neighbor who is a research scientist at Virginia Tech who does exactly that sort of thing.... They're living among us!

compassionate_warrior

As Buddhists, we need to take seriously the first precept. This means whenever possible, using alternate means to killing, in dealing with pests. Preventive measures are important, as person points out. In the case of infestations, we practice a bit of non-clinging to hard and fast rules. In the case of disease, the "greater good" principle comes into play. Killing is ok if it serves a higher good, such as eliminating malaria. In a life-threatening situation, we do what we have to do. Prevention and caution are the best approach there, to minimize the chance of being faced with a difficult decision. We avoid the slippery moral slope by being conscientious and mindful, not choosing a course of action just because we're lazy or can't be bothered to take other measures.

Dakini

I agree with the idea several have put forward that just a little forethought or research can make it easy and effortless to avoid killing, in many instances. "Person" has discovered my cup-and-paper system for liberating bees and spiders from being trapped indoors! Good to know I'm not alone.
One day a big bee was banging itself violently against the window glass from the inside, clearly desperate to get outside. The cup-and-paper treatment made for a very happy bee, who sailed off into the garden after I opened the wondow.

But Mts. is right (and the DL), that we shouldn't be too attached to the point of absurdity to rules, if pests are taking over the house. Termites--yikes! THey can destroy your house~

I just read the autobio of the Dalai Lama's oldest brother. His family, like all farming and herding families, routinely slaughtered their own sheep and cows for food, and the brother, after being declared a tulku and growing up in the monastery, left for Lhasa, taking rifles with him for hunting food on the 3-month trip. Westerners seem to worry about killing a lot more than Tibetans and Mongols do. If you need to kill in order to live, you do what you gotta do. The prohibition seems to be more about unnecessary killing.

yemanja

thank you for your comments, i am not looking at the rule, but i am feeling just sorry to eliminate a life that i find pretty..for example a snail or a ant is just doing its routine and it is a wonder of nature, the same with the caterpillars, some of them are so pretty and they just want to eat, i cannot kill them.. sometimes i hide from my husband who kills all the pests and throw them far, but the place is definitely too much to cope with..sometimes i say to myself i am a vegan already, so i do not kill to eat, maybe after all it is enough.. but i just cannot kill these animals around , it breaks my heart, maybe if i kill them i could try to do it with some blessings or some spiritual words or some apologies..thanks for all your answers!

Dakini

Squishing live beings is gross. I'm sure if you do some research you could come up with a way to protect the plants from pests without chemicals. You might ask at nurseries in your town, someone might know. Some nurseries offer classes of various sorts, you might see if there's a class on this topic.

yemanja

i am living in a third world country where the organic association is not even registering the new coming members..i know a few organic techniques but for the snails it is difficult, their population around my place is the million!this is an extreme situation the industrial world does not know. if you are living in a natural place , you may understand what i mean..

Dakini

Oh, sorry yemanja. Thanks for letting us know. I wonder if any elders in rural areas, who grew up farming, would know some tricks? What about using some netting around the garden beds?

sndymorn

You would kill a bear if it was your only chance at survival and there were no other options.

Or a man , I assume.

ajnast4r

quote from the Tao Te Ching that applies well to this situation i think:

The Master,
knowing all things came from Tao,
recognizes what he has in common
with his enemies
and always tries to avoid conflict.

But when there is no other choice,
he uses force reluctantly.
He does so with great restraint,
and never celebrates a victory;
to do so would be to rejoice in killing.
A person who would rejoice in killing
has completely lost touch with Tao.

When you win a war,
you preside over a funeral.
Pay your respects to the dead.

Cinorjer

My Granddad used to put pans of beer in the garden for the snails. They love it. The snails don't survive, but I suppose they died happy.

Sile

The copper thing really does work! The snails will come up to it, but not cross it. As the earlier poster mentioned, it might be good to mount it on top of slats, 2x4s, etc. This helps keep it from getting dirt/mud washed over it (which could create a convenient bridge over the loathsome copper

The good thing about this approach, in addition to saving bloodshed, is that it actually takes less time than killing the snails, once the "fence" is set.

Sile

P.S. If you're still getting break-ins, you may have to choose a wider strip of copper.

Cinorjer

...The reason I said two miles is because I tried the same thing:
I took a whole bucketload of snails, covered the shells in Sally Hansen Hard as Nails varnish, and took them off two miles away.
Three weeks later, I found one in my front garden.

Now I can only imagine the astonishment of some innocent gardener across town who looks down at his cabbage patch and sees...a snail done up in nail polish. You think the guys at the pub will believe him?

federica

God, I hope not....!