All Creatures Great and Small

The baby snail which came in from the herb garden

On Monday night I invited my younger son, Angus and d.i.l. Amanda over for dinner. While preparing the meal, I fetched a bunch of basil from the garden. I rinsed it in the scullery and came through to the kitchen to chop up the leaves for a tomato-based sauce. Just before I lifted the knife, I saw a slight lump on one of the stalks. As I pulled it off, I realised I was holding a teeny snail between my fingers.

We placed the little snail in front of the pencil point which shows how small he actually is

I placed him on a sheet of white paper and while Amanda and I oohed and aahed over this cute little guy, Angus grabbed my camera and snapped away.

I kept the snail indoors that evening and next day I placed him back on the basil plants where he’d obviously come from in the first place.

Many readers of this blog will know that I do not use insecticide or any other type of poison in my garden. I also do not kill anything in my garden. (You can read about this here) Snails, frogs, bugs, beetles, snakes and flying insects are all welcome in my garden. The reward for this “friendly” gardening is that also I have a myriad of butterflies, dragonflies and birds visiting me.