Slugs

[Denise]

I am having a lot of trouble with slugs eating my butterfly plants. I will not use chemicals in my garden, and am at the moment removing by hand around 40 slugs per night. This is the worst it's ever been. Any ideas of a safe method of drastically cutting down on the numbers? Thanks
Denise

[Dave McCormick]

I was told that if you put copper wire around the base of your plants, slugs and snails can't crawl over that and cannot eat your plants.

Also, some gardener in England over so many years got 14 million slugs from his garden and still never even came close to stopping their numbers as they breed so fast.

[Charles Nicol]

there is an entertaining discussion on slugs here: http://forum.rivercottage.net/viewtopic ... 8af0839eb9

i like the sound of the Newcastle Brown method

charles

[George]

Hi Denise,

I also have been plagued with slugs - (new house and we made the garden ourselves so there were none at the start - where do they all come from!!). I also go out at night by torchlight and hand pick them up. However there is a product called "Nemaslug" which uses nematodes to kil the slugs - link is here:

http://www.greengardener.co.uk/slug.htm

Unfortunately I do not know how good it is but it sounds as if it should work well.

My only other option is to surround the plants with rough stones or gravel which they find it difficult to travel over.

All the best
George

[Martin]

Beer traps!

[Padfield]

I like slugs. Isn't this one a beauty?



We get wonderful yellow and black spotty ones around here too.

I live in slug central and those vile slug pellets sell like hotcakes to Swiss gardeners, but the native plants in my garden live in perfect harmony with the creatures and I presume the same is true in England. My sanctimonious advice, for what it's worth, is simply not to plant artificially concentrated masses of a single species in a single place. Slugs move slowly and have a much reduced effect on mixed areas of plants - particularly certain mixtures (I believe there are gardening books recommending appropriate densities of different plants to diminish the slug attack to tolerable levels). It's like cormorants in fishponds - they are only a pest because of the concentration of fish in one place.

OK - I don't know anything about gardening because I limit myself to scything the garden once a year, after flowering is over - but that method results in 64 species of butterfly living in harmony with thousands of slugs. Of course things are more difficult with limited space and I would certainly not preach to all you lot, who love animals as much as I do; but I'd like to think (hope?) that protecting one group of animals doesn't mean waging war on another.

Guy

[Lynn]

Aren't slugs fascinating! Hot topic! Denise, I have been an organic gardener for 25 years, belieiing in a balance of nature establishing itself. Unfortunately slugs do not seem to have this philosophy. A technique I use a lot to protect my precious plants is to use sacrificial plants ( amazing what we get up to in the Hampshire countryside isn't it?)

Try growing some Webbs Wonderful lettuce seeds in & tray plant out the seedlings when about 2/3cm high & I am sure the slugs will choose to eat those & not your butterfly plants. Hope so! Lik eyou I favour the 'pickem off at dusk' technique.

[Denise]

I don't want to wage war on the slugs Guy, I just want to be able to limit their damage. I've bought some copper bands and sand mats today to place around my most vulnerable plants. I hope this can limit the damage being done to my Devils Bit Scabious and Asters that are just coming up. Unfortunately I missed them munching on the Vipers Buglos which I worked so hard to establish. I have one half eaten plant left out of two dozen! The sheer size and number of slugs is something like i've never seen before, must be down to last year wet summer and a mild winter I suppose. I will have to import more hedgehogs and frogs to help with the problem (Joking)

Denise

[Gruditch]

As some of you guys know I am a Gardner by trade, and therefore slugs and snails should be my sworn enemies, but I'm afraid I'm really fond of slugs and snails. Last year I had a particularly big slug that managed to find my stash of lettuce that I feed the Koi with. I kept the picked lettuce along with the koi food in the out house adjoining the house. I found him devouring my lettuce and put him outside, needless to say he came back, in-fact he always came back. Eventually I ran out of lettuce, but I found him eating a koi pellet I had dropped, so the next time I went out to feed the fish, there he was rearing up as high as he could, looking up at me expectantly. So this become a everyday thing, step out the door give the slug a pellet step over him, go feed the fish, and mind the slug on the way back. He was always there, if not then he would be in our council green garden waste bags. I would usually put the bags out a day early for collection, and if he was still in there, he would start the marathon task of climbing out and travelling the 40ft back up the drive, give him an hour and I would have to go and open up the gate, to let him back into the back garden,
Lynn's right give them some lettuce, or pond pellets and they will leave your other stuff alone.

Gruditch

[Dave McCormick]

I had this problem with slugs/snails a while ago and someone told me to hire a French gardener... Free food for him and no hastle huh?

[Martin]

As some of you guys know I am a Gardner by trade, and therefore slugs and snails should be my sworn enemies, but I'm afraid I'm really fond of slugs and snails. Last year I had a particularly big slug that managed to find my stash of lettuce that I feed the Koi with. I kept the picked lettuce along with the koi food in the out house adjoining the house. I found him devouring my lettuce and put him outside, needless to say he came back, in-fact he always came back. Eventually I ran out of lettuce, but I found him eating a koi pellet I had dropped, so the next time I went out to feed the fish, there he was rearing up as high as he could, looking up at me expectantly. So this become a everyday thing, step out the door give the slug a pellet step over him, go feed the fish, and mind the slug on the way back. He was always there, if not then he would be in our council green garden waste bags. I would usually put the bags out a day early for collection, and if he was still in there, he would start the marathon task of climbing out and travelling the 40ft back up the drive, give him an hour and I would have to go and open up the gate, to let him back into the back garden,
Lynn's right give them some lettuce, or pond pellets and they will leave your other stuff alone.

Gruditch

Sorry Gary, but if that was me he'd have felt my boot and he would have been Koi food

Martin.

[Susie]

I am having the same problem. I have been growing a lot of wildflower from seed. Some I have in the greehouse, which are fine, the others I planted straight out into the garden. I can't tell you how disheartening it is to see the lovely little first shoots appearing only to have them disappear a day or so later as Mister Slug's dinner. Grrrr. I am finding that a lot of my perennials are losing their tops as they are starting to come through too.

I garden organically so would never use slug pellets but I am considering nematodes.

[Lynn]

Dear Rosy Rustic (and anyone else who is fed up of feeding the local slug and snail population with their precious plants!)

here is the link to control advice on the Garden Organic web site.

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/factsheets/pc20.php

Hope that helps

[Susie]

Thanks for the link Lynn.

I have put out a couple of beer traps tonight.

[Denise]

The copper rings DO actually stop the slugs passing over. The clever little beggars are now going under them! The sand mats do work. They cannot glide across the rough surface and give up. This is great for the pots but not the ground. Looks like lettuce and beer traps for me too. I will add, that last year I tried grit and eggshells without much luck, and I only had half the amount of slugs then.

Denise

[Lynn]

Hi Rosy Rustic

How did it go with the beer traps? Did you attract any British males (see preferred nectar plants 17th April) Brian wrote ....

I see what you're getting at here, Guy! British males tend to be more interested in football and beer than larval host plants, whilst the females (Essex in particular) are less choosy?

Bryan

As I am not anti-male I will just say obviously slugs & blokes have equally good taste ( provided its real ale or a decent lager) & will leave it to the Essex females to retaliate to Bryan's comments possibly they will suggest that " beer is a wonderful attractant for slimy creatures!"

Getting back to your slugs - seriously the best way is picking them off by torchlight, creating slug sanctuaries where they can hide in the day & be collected up - lay old tiles rotten wood or the like on the soil near your plants & check daily. Destroy any eggs you find anywhere in the garden. You've got a quest! It could be a new fascination - we can all start slug & snail transects around our gardens. And with th weather Hampshire's been having & with what's to come - heavy rain- I would see more slugs than butterflies

[Susie]

As I said before, I am not anti-slug. I love the leopard slugs and the bright orange ones in particular but this is war with me and my plants on one side and the slugs on the other. As for the beer traps, this morning there were 12 slugs in one trap and a similar number in the other.

I already have a number of stones around the garden and kill the ones I find under there and also those on the underside of the compost bin lid. Any eggs I find go into the pond for tadpole food.

Once my plants are big enough to survive a slug attack them I shall leave them alone and let the frogs, birds and hedgehogs deal with them.

As for sexing a drunken slug, I am afraid life is too short.

I have considered fishing the dead slugs out of the beer traps and feeding them to the birds though ...

[Martin]

I have considered fishing the dead slugs out of the beer traps and feeding them to the birds though ...

Watch out for the crash landings!

[Susie]

Martin!

Beer traps are still going great guns