Grow Your Own Magazine

Ive been weeding my borders today and ive found a frog, not aware of any ponds in my neihbours gardens, but must be one somewhere, so ive put a food tray ( you know the type you get mince in) with fist size pebbles in so he can get in and out and sit on one and surrounded it with plants in pots for shelter and security, will this suffice until he finds his or her way to somewhere bigger?

__________________
Blue411

Don't worry about frogs, they will find their way to more suitable climes. Probably just passing through looking for slugs.

__________________
Andrea :wavehello

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...logs/zazen999/

moon trials completed:
tomatoes
[46% increase in crop per seed sown and 10% increase in crop per plant]

currently underway:
calabrese
garlic

We've had a healthy population of frogs/toads for the past 20+ years. Never had a pond and neighbours have only just put one in. Don't know where they live (the frogs that is!), we find them all around the garden, but there are plenty of untidy, er I mean eco-friendly uncultivated areas, log piles etc. There are always frogs in the greenhouse too, only one this year, but he really makes me jump when he hops out from under the aubergines to get his shower when I'm watering.

__________________
I am Nobody
Nobody's perfect
Therefore, I must be perfect

don't frogs only live in water when they are breeding??

__________________
http://teachy.myminicity.com please visit my town and make it better

http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?biter=teach_me please sign up to be a vampire, i get 10 pints of blood if you do, and it's fun as well ....... i have an interactive map if anyone wants it.

I think you're right lynda. But I can't work out where ours go to breed, because they're definitely breeding! The way it's rained here this year, they probably don't need a pond!

__________________
I am Nobody
Nobody's perfect
Therefore, I must be perfect

I have a small pond(old kids sand pit)lots of frogs & very few slugs & yes they breed>

__________________
I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
W. C. Fields

Yes, frogs only require water to breed.
I have frogs in my garden, hiding in long grass and under pots. There's no pond anywhere nearby.

__________________
~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Today I was stripping out a huge pile of comfrey - Mr. Toad jumped when I moved the bit he was sitting under, I carefully scooped him up and placed him were I wasn't planning on working ....we were both very happy

__________________
aka
Suzie

We have a pond with some resident frogs, when the lights come on of an evening, they seem to sit by the lights waiting for flying insects to be attracted.

There are loads of them all over the place that seem quite happy not being in the pond and when it rains hard, they all seem to appear and move off to different spots. Perhaps a frog version of musical chairs. Obviously seen lots moving from one spot to another.

I've even got a large bright green one living in one of my strawberry beds, gets most indignant when I'm picking strawbs, need a few more of his friends though to vcome and stay by the number of sligs I get.

__________________
I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person

I have frogs in my kitchen every morning One of my cats brings them in, she goes and finds them, brings them back over 6ft fences and lines them up at the backdoor. She then brings them in and leaves them in the kitchen and she goes off again.

She doesn't harm them in any way. We put them all out in the morning behind the shed and they seem to be no worse for it.

We now shut the kitchen door because otherwise we have the odd frog hoping out from under the furniture when you sit watching tv. (We actually stopped the cats from having access to the house during the night, when one morning I thought I was stroking the cat on the bed, only to wake up properly and it was a dead rabbit)

onlyme.....we have a friend whose parents had a huge tomcat who used to bring dead hares onto the bed( head chewed off of course
One day they woke up to find the neighbour's dead Jack Russel

( oh...and welcome to the Vine!)

In France we were about to use the painttray only to find a toad had backed into one of the corners!! Thank goodness it had clingfilm on top of the wet paint!!!!

We had an awful smell in our garage at the weekend, couldn't work out what it was. Took all the recycling to the tip incase it was the milk bottles in that, even though they were all washed out.

Didn't improve the smell so on further investigation other half found the cause, a dead frog. It had some how got itself inside a plastic green house cover, poor things must have suffocated, it nearly got it's own back by suffocating us too though

__________________
Off to China

Frogs and toads "drink" through their skin so the do need access to water. They are generally not far from water and appear to be expert in finding it. This year they will not have had to look too far!

due to the amount of ivy and climbing vines my neighbour has, I am constantly fighting a rearguard action against slugs and snails, I only wish I had more frogs in my garden, sadly I am a cat lover and have five of the beggers who like nothing more than torturing any frog they find ( have you heard a frog squeal?), so any that I do rescue sadly cannot stay, and are promptly transfered cross borders to my mums cat free garden complete with lavish pond.

__________________
'Lets just stick it in, and see what happens?'
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ogs/bridexiii/

In my tiny concrete backyard I have two frogs. I have a small pot, about 8 inches diameter that sits under my plant stand and fills with rainwater and they use that as their 'pond'. They enjoy sitting in my pots of long grass and freak my Jack Russell out at night, he's a bit scared of them, bless him. I think they breed in a big posh pond not far away.

Talk about giving you a fright when you're happily weeding the garden and Mr.Frog decides to pop out at you!!! I think it's quite sweet tho finding them under the pots and logs in the garden. We used to have a pond with frogs in and I hoped they would clear the slugs from the garden, but quite often I would find the slugs attached to the side of the pond with Mr.Frog sat not 2 inches away and showing no interest whatsoever in the slugs!! I've built a few froggy hideaways in the garden as we have 2 cats, one is a geriatric (as the vet calls him) and a bit deaf tho. Please if anyone doesn't know, not to handle frogs with bare hands

I got a visit from a load of local schoolchildren today and after they / I had picked swede, cabbage / kale / turnips / carrots and onions) (they were making soup this afternoon) they asked to see the polytunnel - I opened the door and there he was - my first (and very small) toad. I have a flooded quarry nearby but that is a hell of a journey for this little chap to have made. Anyway, now I know he's in there, the puppy has been banished forever from the tunnel as puppy is now a fully fledged killing machine and is decimating the vermin population at every opportunity, and one gulp and my wee toad would be no more.

__________________
Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday November 13th

Why can't you handle them with bare hands?

I don't go anywhere near them (except to cover them with a bucket so as to prevent sport for th cats til OH gets home to move them) but he uses bare hands.

janeyo

I once threw a pile of washing down the stairs where it stayed for several days probably til I was ready to actually put it in the machine - when I scopped it all up there were 2 frogs under. I don't know who was the more shocked them or me! Then they hopped up the hall (which was 20 metres long, a horrible waste of space) and I had to get the neighbour in who I had never met to catch them.... well it broke the ice lol

Frogs shouldn't be handled with bare hands because the salts on our skin can be harmful to them and irritate their skin. Bacteria and fungus from our hands can also enter their system and give them diseases. If you must pick up a frog it is best to wash your hands well before and after, that would help

When I first moved here I had a couple of frogs and no water as such, my son built his own mini pond (a black bucket sunk in the ground) filled with and surrounded by cobbles. They seem to quite like it! We now have a wildlife pond and I have loads of them all sizes all over the garden. I have to hop around them sometimes to avoid stepping on them, but I'm quite happy to have them as I have had virtually no slug damage this year.