Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: tomatoada on June 20, 2007, 17:56:55
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Does anyone else feel they are not winning the fight with slugs this year. I have lost several runner beans, 3 out of 10 courgettes and I have given up with the dahlias. This in spite of spending more on pellets . I have not lost so much in previous years.
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We didn't see any slugs or snails early in the year when the weather was particularly dry. I'd guess they were still in hibernation, but when the wet weather arrived, they started to attack with a vengance.
I have even found them at the top of my dahlias, eating the stem just below flower buds.
About the only thing in the garden that hasn't been attacked is the lettuces, and they are in polystyrene boxes, on top of some racking, on a raised deck, so are about 7 ft off the ground.
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Not so many slugs here, but certainly more snails...
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Slugs >:( are my biggest enemy Ada, I decided no slug pellets this year but the barstards were eating me out of house and home >:(, so I decided enough is enough and I got the pellets out in big quantity's, over 2/3 days I slaughtered about 30 of them and about 7 snails ;D. Them I went for a second wave weeks later and got about another 12 or so ;D, I saw one cheeky bugger on Monday trying it on when I was there at the plot, the little sod got a green stick straight through it, cheeky git. ;D ;D ;D
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out of the 18 sunflowers I germinated only 3 left thanks to the slimies >:( Didn't realise sunflowers are slug magnets.........
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Any slugs or snails I find up at the lottie get promptly cut in half with the secateurs, or scissors. Might not beat them but it sure makes me feel better.
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Good for you quiz, but drowning is a slower death, one of my favourites is to throw them in the park and watch the birds feast. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D 8)
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cornykev, at home in the garden we have an old paint kettle half full of salty water, just for that purpose, but it's not so far to get to from anywhere in the garden, whereas up at the lottie it could be nearly 40 yards away.
I have found that the slimy b******s can climb out if it's just fresh water, but the salt has them. Mind you it has to be emptied quite frequently as they stink after a short while.
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I still say it is the method and quantity of pellets used that is key.
I don't spread the pellets I just trickle a few around the bed and this seems to keep them off (in the main)
But best of all is to find where the lurk during the day and put a line of pellets down between here and the plants you are protecting this gets them on the way out and also on their return.
The other thing is timing!! get them while they are quite young i.e. before they lay their eggs then next year there are fewer.
My biggest problem is the two plots either side of mine are badly maintained. They are very weedy so I run a line of pellets up either side of my plot to get the slugs/snails leaving/entering this ideal home for slugs& snail.
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I got fed up as well so got some of those organic ones-this morning it was carnage. I`m a wild life lover most of the time but slugs/snails and grass snakes(they eat all the frogs in the village) are not welcome
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I use cheap beer quere they don't get out once there in, it's a bit like a lock in. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Slug are killing loads in my garden.I can pick a 100 off at night.Trying to look at a nice way of killing them but think i will stick with putting them on the field for now.Anybody know a slug killer that is not pellets i wont use them due to the danger to birds and hedgehogs.
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On the BBC blog they recommend using coffee grounds sprinkled thinly in 3-5" tracks around the veg. They seem to be getting good results.
Might be worth calling into your local Starbucks (if only we had one up here in the sticks).
Sand
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Last week popped down to Ipswich to visit sister-in-law and give her a helping hand with her veg patch which had got away a bit.
Her runners had all been reduced to stalks.
After a long day digging and planting seeds and plants we retired to the Pernod and bottles of wine. Later we ventured out to admire our handiwork and found an army of snails emerging from some pipes that are pushed vertically into the ground to water the beans.
We attacked with pellets in the pipe and then giggling like the fools that we are wrapped the end of the pipes with clingfilm and returned triumphant to the wine. Darkness came and we just had to stagger out again with torches to watch.
Watering down the pipes should be interesting in a week or two when the clingfilm comes off :o
Sand
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The slugs seem really bad this year I was trying not to use the pellets but I have had to put down the organic ones (not sure how well they work??). After I was left with two rows of stalks instead of French beans. One of my squash was eaten right through the stem.
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My gardening friend thought I'd gone mad when she came round to share a bottle (or 2!) of wine the other day. I had run out of slug pellets (and local shops had sold out). >:(
When she arrived, I was scattering the contents of a jar of cheap coffee around my crops in the garden. I'd heard of slugs dislike of coffee....and I must say....it did seem to work. :D
Just a bloooody expensive treatment! :o
(wonder if my veg will grow quicker due to caffiene injection!?!) ???
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Not many slugs on my plot, both plots either side are badly run or over run should I say, loads of weeds etc and loads of slugs, but they seem content to stay where they are ??? I`ve put down a few pellets here and there and caught a couple, but thats it, maybe they like their weed infested plots better.
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Has anyone else noticed a change in dietary habits of this year's slimeys?
Normally, in my garden, I can expect to find great feasting on the usual banquet of hostas, sunflowers and other delicacies. However, barely a morsel of these has been touched beyond a nibble. Instead, I've caught them gorging on geraniums, munching on monarda and picking off the primulas... if only I could persuade them to graze on the grass, I'd be laughing!
I'm not the only one to have spotted this phenomenon - but is it just a southern/ London thing?
???
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Northampton here.
My hostas and sunflowers too are virtually unscathed so far, just the odd little hole here and there, but the hostas are in containers. They are munching away at 50% of the dahlias though. Why they are leaving the others alone is baffling.
I was actually wondering if some of the holes in the hostas weren't being caused by lily beetles, or some such thing, as they are only tiny holes.
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Now all my marigolds and dahlias have been slugged >:(
The peas have also been decimated, can pick 20/30 snails off at a time in my garden.
Even in my limited experience, haven't known them to be quite so bad. Am sending in the kids at the weekend to find all their hidey holes with a bucket if salt water.
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Someone on here recommended cat litter (the gritty kind). I found it worked up to a point, so I have sprinkled the little blue pellets as well and the damage is minimal. Mind you, most things on my plot were started at home and transferred, and fitted with a slug collar ( plastic pop bottle sliced so you are left with a tube, a 2 ltr bottle makes two, then make a fringe round the top by snipping at intervals, bend out slightly and fit over plant when it is planted out.)Nothing worked for my sunflowers at home, though.Only 1 left :( All the ones I gave away are flourishing ::))
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Snails have been nibbling away at my plants in the plastic greenhouse, so I cleared it out last night and found one slug and about 12 snails hiding away :o, so I've put all my empty pots and trays down the end of the garden, the slug was drowned ;D and the snails got volleyed over the fence and far away, ;D most of them were underneath my mini greenhouse barstards. >:( ;D ;D ;D
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Any slugs or snails I find up at the lottie get promptly cut in half with the secateurs, or scissors. Might not beat them but it sure makes me feel better.
Eeeuuw! Snip them in half...erk. You are braver than me!! I just couldn't bear it!! Even to a slug. ;D
I do like the salt water option. Now i slug pellet which i have said i wouldn't do for years but this year i have sunflowers! So nice to see what you sow grow into a plant!
Next year i am going to try nematodes. Done quite well this year. They chomped through the early stems of my diddy pumpkins and a few runner beans but everything seems to be ok. Like the idea of putting the pellets where they all hang out.
Yesterday when i was picking redcurrants i put my hand right on one. Bleurgh.
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Planted parsley on plot from it's guttering beginings yesterday, only to catch a HUGE grandfather slug slithering his way over, drooling from his sluggy mouth the moment he thought my back was turned. He was airbourne at great speed. (Can't do the snippy thing either emmy. :o)
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Up late then Mags. :o ;D ;D ;D
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I head this story on bbc7 called slub bucket which i think you might find funny
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/monday/
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Up late then Mags. :o ;D ;D ;D
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D thinking of ways to murder slugs Kev ;)
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Good girl, there are never too many ways to kill em barstards. :P :P :P :o ;D ;D ;D
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Kev, I hope you listened to Cam's link......it was very funny. Thanks Louise. ;D ;D