04/01/2026
I am not a frog. I'm a toad. And the difference tells you why I'm in your garden instead of your pond.
I'm an American Toad. Every child who's ever picked me up has said I found a frog. I'm not. The distinction matters because it explains everything about where I live and what I do.
Frogs have smooth moist skin that needs to stay wet. My skin is dry, thick, and bumpy. I can sit on your patio for hours without drying out. Frogs live in or near water their entire adult lives. I live in your garden. I come to water once a year — for a few days in April to breed. The rest of the year I'm on land. Under your hosta. Behind the AC unit. In the mulch along your foundation.
Frogs have long powerful legs built for leaping. Mine are short and built for walking. I don't leap. I hop. Short stubby purposeful hops. I walk more than I hop.
I'm nocturnal. Active from dusk to dawn. I eat dozens of insects every night — beetles, slugs, ants, mosquitoes, cutworms, earwigs, caterpillars, moths. Over an active season from April through September, one toad removes thousands of insects from your garden. I don't eat your plants. I eat what eats your plants.
The bumps on my skin aren't warts. You can't get warts from touching me — that's a human virus and I'm an amphibian. The bumps are glands that produce a bitter compound. A dog that bites me will drool and paw at its mouth. It won't try again. The compound is a defense, not a danger to you — handling a toad and washing your hands afterward is fine.
I lay eggs in long double strands wrapped around submerged vegetation — not the jelly clumps you see from frogs. If you've seen long dark strings of tiny beads in a shallow pond in April, those are toad eggs.
I've been living within thirty feet of your back door since last spring. You've never seen me because I work at night and spend the day under cover.
🐸 How to keep a toad in your garden:
- A shallow dish of water sunk to ground level gives me a place to rehydrate at night — I absorb water through my skin by sitting in it, not by drinking
- A clay pot turned on its side or propped up with a stone in a shady corner becomes a daytime shelter I'll use all season
- Leave leaf litter and mulch undisturbed in garden beds — that's where I hide during the day and where I find most of my prey at night
- Skip slug pellets and broad-spectrum insecticides — they kill the insects I eat and can poison me directly through my skin
- A toad that finds a yard with shelter, water, and insects stays for years. I return to the same garden every spring
I'm not a frog. I'm the reason your garden has fewer slugs than your neighbor's 🌿
