Aquaponics - My million new friends

It seems I'm about to have a million new visitors to my garden. I hope they like me.

All the baby spinach are covered in what looks a lot like eggs.

There is some, slim chance they are something good, but I'm told by various people that they might be snail eggs, or slugs eggs. If they are slug eggs, I'm going to have to do something drastic.

I think our snails lay eggs underground, and I met a slug couple under a rock that I moved. So I'm thinking slugs, but the eggs are tiny. Perhaps 0.2 millimetre. That's a baby spinach leaf, so these things a really small.

I don't like slugs so much.

Kind of, too... sluggy.

I don't even like the name.

Slug. Needs more g's

Anyway...

I found this interesting looking guy that I think might be a black soldier fly. If it is I'm very happy.

Black soldier fly or BSF, are a fly that has little in common with the house fly. For one thing they don't eat. They are really just the mating and egg laying retirement, of the BSF larva that eat compost.  They don't bother people and, as far as I know, don't do any harm. They are just obsessed with compost. I know some people like that, and they tend toward the harmless end of the social spectrum as well.

BSF larva make great food for fish. If I do have some, I might try to breed some. Perhaps I already have. They might be the ones laying the eggs.


Whatever they are, there's going to be a lot of them.

I hope they're friendly.

[edit from the future - They're not friendly. My hatched bugs look like aphids]

Snail farming - Snail wrangling

As a snail wrangler, I feel there is a decided lack of snail farming sayings that sufficiently express the dangerous, and action packed lifestyle that only living on a working snail farm can offer.

Every day I peer into my sophisticated snail farming saucepan, and see that they have actually eaten, but mostly they seem to do a lot of sleeping. Surprisingly, when I open the lid, they often make a break for freedom, and sometimes succeed. Which gives rise to the first of my old snail farming sayings.

"Snails. They're faster than you think."

Aside from escape efforts, the snails have also been exhibiting egg laying behaviour. Egg laying behaviour in so far as they dig into the soil, but don't actually lay any eggs. I cant help thinking that the soil is unsuitable or something. I might add a little sand to it.








From what I've read, I should have seen some eggs by now from at least one of my clan, so I'm going to try to learn a bit more about their reproductive requirements.

Their house currently looks like this.

Every time I put food in for them, it's eaten as soon as I wander off for a bit and look in again. But I still haven't actually seen them eat.

Perhaps they're shy.

But I suspect they're planning something behind my back.

Which gives rise to my second old snail farming saying.




"Never, ever, turn your back on a snail."