Topic: Social slugs

[picman]

Found my slugs having a meeting to decide what crop they would destroy. ( leaving a nice dark wet place for them helps 'collect' the blighters )

[Obelixx]

I put a large piece of broken pot on one bed where the snails were a complete pest and would find a dozen or so congregating there every morning.   I dare say the same trick would work for slugs in the cabbage patch but not so easy to get the blighters out of the hosta pots.

[Paulh]

Obelixx, have you tried putting copper tape round the pots? I've found it really effective, so long as the hosta leaves don't touch the ground or something else that then provides a bridge into the pot.

The tape lasts for years, just check each spring that it hasn't any gaps in it. One application then of whatever is your preferred slug "remedy" to make sure you haven't trapped any gastropods in paradise.

[Obelixx]

I haven't found copper tape here Paulh.   I did find some, once, when we lived in Belgium but it was fiendishly expensive and I had over 20 pots.

[Paulh]

An online UK supplier sells a 10m roll for £9.99 plus delivery. I don't know if that is typical. I've still got some left from when I bought it at least ten years ago!

[Obelixx]

More like 10€ for enough for one pot when I saw it in Belgium.  I stuck to the new slug pellets and hand picking.

[Tee Gee]

Reminds me of a friend of mine who would lay a plank of wood on the top of the soil near to the plants that wanted protection. Then either at dusk or or early morning he would look under the plank of wood to see if there were any slugs. If there was he would stick his trusty skewer into them in a way that the next slug would slide up the skewer pushing the previous one further up the skewer On a good visit the skewer was pretty near full after his patrol. On you could say he ended up with skewer that was reminiscent of a kebab.

[Paulh]

I should avoid reading this thread when I'm eating my lunch!

[picman]

I had a small bag of the wool pellets ( slug gone) very expensive, but works, dont know how long for, I put some of it round my six celery  plants.so that's about a pound for each plant ...The damp dark slug shelter is cheaper.       

[Obelixx]

That's expensive celery!!

Our last garden - central Belgium and lots of rain - was a slug paradise so I used several methods to trap slugs, including picking them off by torchlight.  OH favoured scissors.   Yuk!

This garden is drier so we have more of a snail proble.   Yesterday I went o pot on  alate germinated and developing courgette plant only to find 2 huge fat snails had crawled under the pot and were tipping it up.    They were fat on a baby dahlia that's been struggling.  Now despatched across the road into the hedgerow whence they'll have to take their chances against tractors and traffic and gravel to get back.

[picman]

Why don't slugs and snails eat weeds ? ,

[saddad]

They do, you just don't notice!