Topic: Slugs and Snails

[Rain]

Are there any ways of stopping these from munching through everything WITHOUT killing them? I'm probably only one of a handful that feel they don't deserve to die, but I'm also battling with trying to keep my plants. I go out in the evenings and collect all I can find and I've also tried using pistachio nutshells, which I can confirm do nothing to stop them and I believe actually attract them.

Does anyone know of anything that actually works, minus beer traps and slug pellets?

[cowpie]

My parents have had some success using grapefruit skin. Slugs love these and tend to gather underneath. It’s then easy to remove them from your allotment or garden, but make sure you take them some distance away, for in a few days they’ll find their way back.

You can temporarily reduce slug damage by putting old lettuce leaves near your seedlings. Slugs will always go for rotting leaves before living ones. But this is counterproductive in the long term as it will just increase the slug and snail population.

The drawback of an ethical approach to pests is that if they don’t die, they will multiply. On our allotment site we’ve got a substantial and aggressive slug community, and sadly it’s not realistic to grow anything without persistently murdering them in increasing numbers. Last night, in an untreated corner of our plot, some slug or snail finished off an entire tomato plant. (I thought these were poisonous?)

[Rain]

Thank you cowpie.

I'll try your suggestions. Does seem a bit depressing though to think that ultimately, in the long run, the only way round it is to kill them.

There must be some things that they really don't like? So that rather than increasing their numbers they just move somewhere else? What about hair, does anyone know if this works?

 :( :-\

[saddad]

No Mercy for Molluscs!!!! Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
 ;D

[Lois Pallister]

They are supposed to get a shock from copper. I am about to run an experiment for a few years on my plot which you can read about on the Allotments UK Forum here: http://www.allotments-uk.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1467
Read the post in RED first as this is the revised plan for the experiment.

If the copper is proven to be effective I will be putting it all around my raised beds and I am hoping that if I then use the nematodes to kill off the slugs within the bed that the effects will be far longer lasting as new populations will not get in past the copper. This way after the initial 'cull' I will not be killing them but merely keeping them away from the plants that I want to munch rather than them!

Also Rain, I don't know if you've heard about the new pellets which are ferrous phosphate based rather than metaldehyde. These break down into iron and phosphate in the soil, do not harm other wildlife, and last longer than the metaldehyde pellets! They are accepted by the HDRA to be used in organic gardening.

I'm with you Rain
Out of the 20 species in this country only 4 of them eat our crops
When they are not eating our crops they are good to have around as they do a similar job to worms!
And if we kill them we take them out of the food chain so better to leave them for the frogs, hedgehogs and birds.

Lois

[saddad]

I use the barrier methods, and Nemaslug, and this year a few of the new blue pellets. In combination they have been very effective... but there are still corners were they can chew away... it is when they decide to migrate that I get really mad! Remember they prefer worked soil / compost to lay their eggs in!
 >:(

[Cat]

This year I have surrounded my plants with grit and oats and so far so good.

As for my containers I smear vaseline around the rims, seems to work too  :)

Cat

[Gadfium]

Where feasible, you could try sinking a pot (with the bottom cut out) around newly planted-out stuff, then smear a band of vaseline around the rim of the pot.

I go out with a torch on a few consecutive nights (expecially when it's raining), collect the munchers, and chuck them into a neighbouring field... accepting that this method means a potentially high seedling loss rate, +/- having to module grow quite a lot and set them out when of a size more likely to survive the nocturnal diners.

Rows of newly germinated stumps (last year's winter radish), and stumps (late turnips) ... are, of course, encountered.  ::)

But since I'm unwilling to terminally dispose of the buggers, that's the way it goes.