The Science Mouse

All amphibians are carnivores. They eat insects, slugs, snails and sometimes even other amphibians. Basically, they eat anything that moves that can fit in their mouths.  Young frogs have to watch out or they will end up on someone else’s menu!

Amphibians are very beneficial to the environment and to people by eating many of the insects that are harmful to humans and our gardens.

A single toad might eat up to 1,500 earwigs in a summer! In addition to the above insects, larger female toads also tackle Japanese beetles and June bugs. Although a toad will unfortunately eat the occasional beneficial insect, over 81% of its diet consists of unwanted insects (Organic Gardening, May/June 1994).  Urban Outback

It would be difficult to keep frogs or newts or salamanders in your garden unless you had a pond.  It is relatively easy to attract toads, however, because they do not need as much water.  They need water to lay eggs in, but once they go through their metamorphosis they leave their pond to live and hunt on land.

A Toad image courtesy of wikipedia.org

Toads are nocturnal, which means they are awake at night and asleep during the day.  During the day, they find a cool dark place to sleep.  To attract them to your garden, you can make a toad house!

All you need is a flower pot.  You can even use a broken flower pot.  You can also paint it.  It is better to use natural colors, but it will make the flower pot look nice rather than just something buried in your yard.  Then find a shady spot to place your toad house.  Bury it half way so there is an entrance for the toads to go in.

Hopefully this will help you attract toads to your garden to help control slugs, snails and other pests that harm your garden!