Topic: Slugs

[jock_edin]

I must admit these little things just about made me pack the lottie in after the growing season. Iv,e had mine 5/6 years now and the lettuce and cabbage, and lesser extent cauli were almost inedable. There were days after useing blue pellets I could quarter fill a plastic bag,  of tesco size.  Not once over the growing season but 3 or 4 times.  I know they are part and parcel with the earth but on our site I seem to have worse plot than others.  Just a month or so I was looking at cabbage on another plot and there seemed to be not even a hole in the leaves never mind totally eaten away inside.  I can bring a single cabbage home after stripping the outer leaves,  leave in the basin and within cleaning it another 6 or 10 will find there way out. Please does anyone have some system of stopping them.

[Jesse]

Have a look at this thread http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/yabbse/index.php/topic,4440.0.html, it may give you a temporary relief and perhaps you can repeat a perimiter treatment around your beds to deter any new invasion. Otherwise remember you need to use pellets (I use the hedgehog friendly grains) before any sign of slugs and snails, no use applying after the damage is done and repeat at intervals to kill off any new generations.

[gavin]

Wonder if it's the pellets that's part of the problem?  Not so daft as it sounds - does your neighbour use them?

Slug pellets are less than 5% poison (quickly washed out in the rain), and 95% bait (dog-food and yeast extract (lasts for weeks).  Result?  Quick kill for 24-48 hours - and weeks of feeding up the next generation.  Oh, and attracting in hungry slugs from all around?

Ah but what to do about them!  Sorry - this is the result of working backwards (trying to work out why I didn't have a major slug problem) - a few ideas

• Get rid of "slug palaces" - remove planks of wood, stones, plastic bags, or flower-pots lying on the ground.   Shady moist cracks and crevices between piles of wood and walls are another favourite home.
• Plant lots of small groups of many different varieties
• Keep a good crop rotation
• Digging exposes slug eggs to frost in winter, or to hungry nesting birds in spring. They look like lumps of tapioca!
• Slugs don't like to crawl over newly cultivated soil - so regular hoeing will discourage them; especially worthwhile in spring - so you don't allow a large population to dvelop in late summer and autumn.
• Divert the little "-------s" - give them something they like to eat!   Sow some lettuce between your brassicas.   You won't get any lettuces, but all the brassica you planted!   And you'll know where to look for your slug population before they mature and breed.
• Beer traps
• I believe spinkling bran helps - they eat it, it swells, they burst; but I've not had to try it
• The one I liked best - one of my children's games involve "making safes"; they'd cut a flap of turf, which hinges back, and they pretend to hide valuables.   Next week, they visit their "safes", open the flap, and squash the slugs hiding there!   The kids thought they were playing, but I know they're not!

PS One last idea - give your pellets to your neighbour :o :o :o

There's lots of other advice on other websites - some I liked listed here http://www.keirg.freeserve.co.uk/diary/links/bug.htm

Woops - that's a bit long-winded.

[edit]Just as well I am, and you got in first, jesseveve - I'd forgotten the coffee one! :-)[/edit]

 Good luck, jock_edin :o

[Doris_Pinks]

Jock, one of my top Christmas gifts was a book called 50 ways to kill a slug!  If there is any useful info in there (i have a feeling it will all be rather comical) I shall pass it on!
You are not alone, the little darlings got more produce than we did  last year in the form of seedlings etc! But we keep going and I tend to sow thicker allowing for damage, the best thing I have done over the years is to sow things at home, and transplant when they are big enough to fend for themselves. (Obviously doesn't work with some veg!)
Now I am rambling too! Good luck.DP

[Marianne]

I have always heard that egg shells round valuable plants will deter slugs as they hate to walk over that type of material. 

Also, cutting an orange or grapefruit in two and turning it upside down at night will attract them,  In the morning, pick the slug-filled fruit up and dispose of carefully.

I do not like to use beer traps as, even though I HATE them, I do not like to think they will suffer drowning. 

Good luck with them anyway! :)

[Roy Bham UK]

I do not like to use beer traps as, even though I HATE them, I do not like to think they will suffer drowning.

Tee hee what a way to go, :D given the choice I'd choose that exit 8)

[Mrs Ava]

I am with Gavin on passing your slug pellets to your neighbours.  I don't use them on my plot, and altho I do suffer some damage from the slimey ones....it is pretty minimal, and to be honest, my lettuces were untouched, it wasn't until autumn and winter came along and everyone else packed up their plots and went home for the winter whilst I carried on that slugs became more noticeable.

Upturned lemons, oranges and even things like melon skins attract them and then you can pick the horrors off.  Other than that, I don't like to use chemicals, so try to remove hiding places, keep the plot tidy and cultivate regularly and the birds seem to do some of the work for me.

[Travman]

Ive been told by people who use this product that its great for getting rid of slugs with no side effects. Although can be expensive depending on area to be treated.
Its nemaslug- a biological control
I intend to try it this year.
Any one else tried it with success
http://www.greengardener.co.uk/slug.htm

[Jesse]

I used Nemaslug about 7 years ago. It did work by reducing the number of slugs but it did not eliminate all of them, but we did have an awful lot of them to start with. And it only worked for a short period of time and it was (don't know what the price is like now) very expensive for such a short-term solution. I have found the Growing Success hedgehog friendly grains to be much more effective, sprinkle a small handful every 2-3 days (do this about 1 week before planting out your seedlings too) and it seems to keep them away. Once the seedlings are big enough the slugs tend to leave them alone.

[Mrs Ava]

Just a little aside.....did tickle me that this slug posting is in the pet section....I really did wonder if people would want slugs as pets, after all, you can buy those HUGE land snails to keep as pets..... whatever turns you on.... :D

[Wicker]

LOL. Maybe Jock's sense of humour??

Those of you who get Gardeners Weekly may have read the article about "dealing" with slugs?  Various methods of trapping them (drowning in beer/water etc) then the suggestion that all the corpses should be collected put in a specially bought(!!) mini liquidiser and the resultant goo diluted with water in a 1:9 ratio and sprayed with a pressure sprayer on to the plants - seems the smell should deter other slugs - the very idea deters me completely!!

[Mrs Ava]

GROSS!

[gavin]

REVENGE!!!!  :-) :-) :-) :D

[Lady Cosmos]

I never use or have used slug pellets.
I put a layer of sea shells around every group of veg and slugs or snales do NOT like the shells and do NOT pass the little mountains and my veg garden is slug free. My lettuce and endive is clean and I can not find them even in the ground.

Do the same with hosta's etc and NO problems.....