Topic: sacraficial planting

[TonyD]

over the years i have worked on many differant farms and have noticed some strange bedfellows for instance on a farm whose main grop was cabbage and cauliflowers every three beds they grew a bed of Chinese cabbage(nappa) because the bugs that attacked the main crop preferred the Chinese cabbage. so they sprayed the Chinese cabbage and not the main crop.
on a vineyard they grew roses at the end of each row, and roses all along the road ways for the same reason.
potato farms that grew sweet potatoes along side the main crop.
in my small garden i notice that the only slug damage i had was on the marigolds that bodered my beans, but none on my beans.
i have dug up half of my lawn an area 20 ft by 14 ft and have made a raised bed. i am thinking of putting a copper water pipe all around  the top of the wood cost permitting. that and the marigolds all around may save me some heart and backache. has anybody tried this?

[saddad]

I certainly use marigolds amongst my brassicas. (African or tagetes) It helps when they are small but the slugs/snails seem to prefer the brassicas later in the season... I do find it helps reduce whitefly though...  :)

[shirlton]

We always grow french marigolds in the greenhouse with the toms

[tonybloke]

try nasturtiums near the brasicca beds, cabage white butterflies prefer them to lay their eggs on!! ;) and plant a teasel amongst your roses, the aphids move onto them, just in time for the roses to flower. ;D ;D

[Borlotti]

Wish someone would tell the cabbage white butterflies to lay their eggs on my nasturtiums, they much prefer my sprouts, PSB and cauliflower.

[PurpleHeather]

I have often heard that idea of growing stuff near by to attract pests like black fly but no one actually said that you shold spray these plants. It makes sense though especially when the nasty chemicals were used. The things you ate would not need to be sprayed.

Copper wire is cheaper than water pipes and I am lead to believe the slugs wont slither across anything copper.

We had a plot holder who spent a fortune making raised beds surrounding them with copper then watered that stuff nemotoads I think, it is called. It did not work out for him, he still got slug damage and it cost him quite a bit.

We have had terrible trouble with slugs on our plot, it was lower than our neighbour but raising the beds and keeping a sort of ditch around the insides seems to work, put some lengths of old rotting wood over the lowest bit then every visit  Collect the slugs is what one of our allotment holders showed us he does, he keeps score of how many he catches. Seems to be quite a few on his score card.  Turn the wood over and there are always clusters of them there.  

He cuts them in two with a pen knife a jug of salt water does a reasonable job. It gets horribly slimy yuk.

The couple who seem to have less slugs on their plot keep chickens at home and bring the chuks down regularly for a good peck round.

It does seem like an unwinnable war with them. I read that they can go for ages without eating anything.

Let us know how you get on and thanks for explaining the sacrificial planting system.

Marigolds are very useful, we have planted them round the carrots two years running and had no carrot fly, not sure if it is that or the planting end of May and digging up before September we did at the same time. (Being told that the carrot fly comes round every three months)
 

[Palustris]

We have had terrible trouble with slugs on our plot, it was lower than our neighbour but raising the beds and keeping a sort of ditch around the insides seems to work, put some lengths of old rotting wood over the lowest bit then every visit  Collect the slugs is what one of our allotment holders showed us he does, he keeps score of how many he catches. Seems to be quite a few on his score card.  Turn the wood over and there are always clusters of them there. 

He cuts them in two with a pen knife a jug of salt water does a reasonable job. It gets horribly slimy yuk.

The couple who seem to have less slugs on their plot keep chickens at home and bring the chuks down regularly for a good peck round.

It does seem like an unwinnable war with them. I read that they can go for ages without eating anything.

The majority of British slugs are actually carnivorous, they eat other slugs. And most of the others lack the strength of mouth parts to eat green material, they live on partly decomposed matter. It is snails which do the most damage to plants rather than slugs.

[thifasmom]

Wish someone would tell the cabbage white butterflies to lay their eggs on my nasturtiums, they much prefer my sprouts, PSB and cauliflower.

ditto >:(

We have had terrible trouble with slugs on our plot, it was lower than our neighbour but raising the beds and keeping a sort of ditch around the insides seems to work, put some lengths of old rotting wood over the lowest bit then every visit  Collect the slugs is what one of our allotment holders showed us he does, he keeps score of how many he catches. Seems to be quite a few on his score card.  Turn the wood over and there are always clusters of them there. 

He cuts them in two with a pen knife a jug of salt water does a reasonable job. It gets horribly slimy yuk.

The couple who seem to have less slugs on their plot keep chickens at home and bring the chuks down regularly for a good peck round.

It does seem like an unwinnable war with them. I read that they can go for ages without eating anything.

The majority of British slugs are actually carnivorous, they eat other slugs. And most of the others lack the strength of mouth parts to eat green material, they live on partly decomposed matter. It is snails which do the most damage to plants rather than slugs.

really, i wish someone told the slugs in my garden this :-\ :(.

[tonybloke]

have you actually seen slugs doing the damage? it usually is snails that are the real villain, true, the lace slugs like fresh greens, but most of the others ptrefer partially rotten food. ( the big black ones eat cat sh*t)

[Sparkly]

( the big black ones eat cat sh*t)

really???? blergh!

[thifasmom]

have you actually seen slugs doing the damage? it usually is snails that are the real villain, true, the lace slugs like fresh greens, but most of the others ptrefer partially rotten food. ( the big black ones eat cat sh*t)

there are three main types i have caught in the act, some little black one which i believe live in the soil, then there are some big orangey ones that from time to time munch on my lettuce and soft leaf veges and then there are some light grey/ whitish ones that get in there when they are about but there numbers are a lot less than the first two.

i do have snails but i rarely find them in the vege patch, more among the flowers in the flower bed section of the garden and in the last two years i have found that their numbers a very much reduced, but it think this is due to the garden much better cultivated now and they have a lot less places to hide.....i think.

[tonybloke]

the little black ones are juveniles, and yes, they travel through the soil (under copper rings)  ;)

[thifasmom]

the little black ones are juveniles, and yes, they travel through the soil (under copper rings)  ;)

juveniles for which ones the orangey ones/ the black ones, i don't see much of latter in my garden.

[Vinlander]

I always put lots of grapevine cuttings in the greenhouse - as they root they become a lure for vine weevil and tend to keep them off other stuff they like - like strawberries. You can of course use strawberries to keep them off something else.

Both these plants have roots that are fairly easy to wash, and if they aren't too badly nibbled they will survive for another go.

Vine weevils are b%^&*.

NB. The standard insecticide is a neonicotinoid - and they are all implicated in killing bees because they are too persistent.

Just before they came out they banned nicotine  - a simple, controllable and very biodegradable poison we are all confident handling. Surprise surprise.

[Vinlander]

Only snails climb any distance - so any rasping damage more than a few cm from a damp hiding place is almost certainly snail damage - especially in dry weather.

The majority of British slugs are actually carnivorous, they eat other slugs. And most of the others lack the strength of mouth parts to eat green material, they live on partly decomposed matter. It is snails which do the most damage to plants rather than slugs.

The quote above is probably true, except if it implies slugs hunt and control themselves - in which case slugs would soon eat each other into extinction. :)

I was told on good authority that real specialist carnivore slug-hunting slugs do exist but they are very rare (wolves are always rarer than sheep) - this isn't slug cannibalism because they are a separate species (I can't remember the distinguishing features but I remember they are supposed to be fairly clear-cut).

The species you tend to see 'out and about' will eat whatever is available, including each other in a pinch - especially if the 'other' is already dead.

I'm also confused about the mouthpart bit because my experience (with a heavy boot) tells me slug skins are amazingly tough whereas lettuce leaves can be crushed to a pulp by mere careless handling.

I won't deny that snails can be worse in some environments - I've noticed they are very prevalent in gardens where there are lots of hiding places, but less likely to be found in open ground - where slugs are in the majority and do definitely eat crops.

I also think the case against the keeled slug (for eating root veg underground) is pretty watertight...

NB. I trap big snails for two reasons:
a) to eat later - though I haven't yet worked up the courage or the application (they are fiddly)
b) because I read that big snails scare off little snails via some chemical marker in their tracks - the jury is out on my experiment, but I'm surprised that snail farms haven't found some way of selling this pheremone or whatever to us gardeners...

Cheers.

[TonyD]

vinlander,do you have you any idea how to make nicotine insecticide? could tobacco leaves be used similar to comfry? if so i got the tobacco seeds, and if you don't tell i won't.
tobacco was used as a medicine by the first nation people of north amarica for century's before the white man got there. the sap in the leaves used to draw bee stings and ease discomfort of mosquito bites.also used as a poultice for fevers. if they had a wound that went septic they put a piece of mouldy cornbead on the wound and then wrapped  tobacco leaf over it. the wound healed very quickly.  where do you think penicillin was found? mouldy cornbread!!

[Robert_Brenchley]

Try steeping tobacco in cold water and see whether that works. Nicotine is an alkaloid and I'd be wary of heating it too much, though some (I believe a very small proportion) has to survive the process as smoking wouldn't work if it didn't. Be careful as the stuff is deadly. They banned home-made insecticide long ago because gardeners were dying from nicotine poisoning. Eating a packet of fags can kill you.

[Digeroo]

And most of the others lack the strength of mouth parts to eat green material,

I wish someone had told the slugs round here they it was impossible to eat my dwarf beans.  Not only did they attack the leaves they attached the bean pods as well.  Huge black jobs.  They also have not read the book when it comes to avoiding copper.  Seems to make little difference to them.  They were certainly not snails.  I call them mobile dog do.

Actually the beans could be used as a sacrificial plant to draw the slugs from other crops.  But they do produce nice tasty pods.

[tonybloke]

Ah, you got som of the 'Arion ater' slugs, ain't they fantastic creatures!! nearly big enuff for a saddle!! ;)

[Digeroo]

ain't they fantastic creatures

They are horrible.  I picked 25 off one bean plant on one night alone.  Only had small slugs until a few years ago.  They do however love beetroot and certain varieties of that, so this might be a good sacrifice.