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Category: Michele's Garden | Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 1:18 am

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Hello again. Two blogs in 1 night! So I mentioned snakes in the garden. At the beginning of June we were moving and emptying some tires that we were not using. My husband was doing the tipping of the tires. And we had garter snakes! There was small male garter snake in the first tire we tipped over. He was fast...I screamed and ran off. Then I decided that pictures were needed. I had Logan run in the house and get the camera.



No snakes in the second tire but when we got to the 3rd tire a huge, slow female garter popped out. She was brownish, had recently shed her ski and was very slow. Upton research it said females are sluggish so that they can use most of their energy to birth live young. They will on average give birth to 50 babies and as many as 98! Yep...that is a lot of LIVE young!



Then as we were tipping the 4th tire out came another fast male that slithered off.



And then a snake I had never seen before. At first glace it looked like a pile of red slugs..but then it moved slowly away. I researched it afterwards and it was called the Red Bellied snake. They are slug specialists. It was only about 12 inches long and very shy.





We have been keep tabs on the snakes this summer. The female seems to have moved to the neighbors yard and look up residence in an old motorcycle. One of the males is still living in the garden. He makes himself known from time to time. You can hear him slithering on the black plastic.

This was a unit for Logan for home school science. It is so easy to find science units to cover. Science is everywhere!


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Bernieh wrote on Sun Aug 07, 2011 2:03 am:

Looks like we have common experiences with snakes in the garden. There's loads of them around my place as we're right out in bushland and surrounded by bush on most sides. There's always a snake or two around somewhere here. I don't mind so much except when they get into the house or up on our verandah. Then it's just not cool!

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Sjoerd wrote on Sun Aug 07, 2011 8:00 am:

Hello Again, GM-- I reaad with great interest your posting on the snakes in the tires. Come to think of it, the tires must be an ideal home for those little beasts.
I never see snakes here, so seeing yours tweeked my interest. I would like to find one and I think that I would pick it up and examine it carefully.

It was just amazing how many you found! Do you suspect that they will return once the tires are placed in new places?

Thanks for the interesting posing.

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gardenmama wrote on Sun Aug 07, 2011 12:03 pm:

We know that 2 came back to the garden....and I am sure the red bellied is hiding somewhere in the tires. The tires are a perfect home for the snakes and I am sure they hibernate in them during winter. I know we have seen 1-2 in the tires in the past. I can't help but wonder if there is a snake in every tire pile...that would be A LOT! I don't scream any more and maybe someday I will pick one up...but not this year!

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gardenmama wrote on Sun Aug 07, 2011 12:06 pm:

Bernieh..I don't mind the snakes around as long as they don't get in the house! Then we would have a major issue. AND they are non threatening non poisonous and help keep down the population of spiders (which I really really hate and bite!)

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carolyn keiper wrote on Mon Aug 08, 2011 1:44 pm:

Hi GM, this was a great blog, thanks for sharing with us this experience. We have the garter snakes and a few other non-poisonous snakes around and maybe copperheads, although I have never seen one out in the wild, Your Red Bellied snake was a new one for me. I always try to keep the snakes safe, they are such good rodent and pest control.

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