whilst doing some deep digging early last week we found two leaches wrapped up together deep in the clay soil, we then found more under some slabs.
can anyone tell me if they are friend or foe?
and how did they get there?
Gill
From a gardening point of view they are niether frend or foe, just a curiosity of nature.
How did they get there? In much the same manner as worms do. Leeches will live a long time away from water provided they do not dry out. Water is only essential for the breeding cycle. Much of thier life is spent in the damp meadows where presumably they could give you a bite.
Oh thanks for that. Quite interesting really
The plot is quite water logged most of the year so they will be ok on that front!
Gil;
Hi Gixer,
Found them on our plota couple of years ago, also heavy clay and wet. No problems from the leeches, but I would suggest you are digging too deep and at risk or combining unhelpful clay in with your useable clayish soil.
If you have standing water, then drains and raised beds will be a better plan rather than trying to break down low layer clay.
Cheers
Leeches are quite at home on damp ground, so they're not a surprising find. I used to find lots of them under pieces of wood along the banks of the Thames. they'll probably be horse leeches, which are completely harmless to humans. The medicinal leech will be quite happy to take a blood sample (hence the name; they used to be used to bleed patients) but they're pretty scarce these days.
Thankyou people
Froglets, we do have drainage ditches all around the plot (which are working well as we are also on a slant) but our intention is to gradually chip away at the clay whilst adding organic matter to try to get some depth (which is only a spade depth of good soil now) then we might have some success with root veg. Not sure if it will work but does no harm to try for the long term
Think I'll just leave the leeches alone if they don't do any harm
thanks
Gill
Are you sure they were leeches and not New Zealand flatworms? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_flatworm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_flatworm) nasty little sods.....