PEST BUFFET

If snails are ruining your crops, revenge is a dish best served… with garlic butter and a glass of wine, according to Ruud Kleinpaste.

as human beings, we are blessed with the ability to make choices. And I’m convinced that – from a sustainability point of view – gardeners are in a good position to make the most informed decisions.

Being a vegetarian (herbivore) might go against the plant-growing ethos we all have, but for the planet it’s a heck of a lot better than being a carnivore. Growing animal protein is relatively wasteful in terms of resources (water, nutrients, space, excrement, pollution and such) compared to growing plant protein (although insects are a highly environmentally-friendly protein to produce!).

Many people are omnivores and eat a bit of everything: plants, mammals, insects, nuts, fruits, you name it. It’s apparently a nice fit for the arrangement of our teeth.

Others are locavores, who attempt to eat only locally-produced foods, obviating the need to spend a lot of carbon on transporting stuff around the country and the globe. Your vege garden would be handy for locavory.

But what about the concept of the invasivore… someone who eats invasive species. It makes a lot of sense to harvest and consume the exotic pest species we are trying to control or even eradicate.

Yes, we have great recipes for nettle soup and dandelion salads, but that is just tinkering around the edges. How about really getting into some serious work with rabbits, goats, pigs and hares? Hares are a speciality in parts of Europe and some great locavore restaurants, such as Redcliffe Café in Te Anau, will show you why.

I’m not sure how palatable Canada goose is; possum’s an acquired taste – I know! But dare I suggest hedgehogs? These flea-, mange- and ringworm-infested vertebrates do very little for snail and slug control in the garden, yet in some of the most fragile habitats in New Zealand, they feed on eggs and young of ground-nesting birds, lizards and large native insects!

Romany gypsies, according to the literature, chucked them in boiling water, gutted them then rolled them in sticky clay to roast over a fire. When “done”, the clay was broken off and the prickles (and fleas) came off with the clay, leaving a small, tender animal, ready for consumption.

Not sure how well that would go down in the specialty vitrine of New World…

Nor would rat, mouse, stoat and ferret, I expect. I don’t think we’d eat our way towards Predator-Free New Zealand 2050. Sorry Maggie Barry!

We may have to cross a few lines and demolish some ingrained, preconceived ideas for invasivory to catch on. But there are some bigpicture pest animals perfect for the invasivore’s table – the introduced deer species and the two trouts.

I can hear the howls of protest already!

Or, if we return to the gardener’s quarter acre paradise, I am sure we could make a case for one brilliant target: Cantareus aspersus, the humble garden snail. Few folk realise that this species – also known as petit gris – is right up there in the escargot hit parade in France, together with the vineyard snail ( Helix pomatia).

The garden snail is ubiquitous and destructive in your ornamentals and veges alike; they often hibernate in groups in clever, sheltered places, known as hibernaculae.

Once you’ve got a feel for where to find them, the hunt is on. This could be the Family Activity of the winter months! Take the kids or the grandkids and wake the fattest snails from their slumber; then follow the recipes on the right. And remind them it’s Fathers Day soon – imagine what a treat a feed of snails would be!

It makes a lot of sense to harvest and consume the exotic pest species we are trying to control or even eradicate, one bite at a time.