hi bit of advice please if i put sawdust around my plant would that stop most of the slugs.
many thanks jj
You can only try...and hope best.. ::)
In my lottie..no...in yours, maybe your slugs have different bellies..
..as long as you are not using it by bucket loads at the time there is no reason why not to have ago.. ;)
Bran is loads better. You can buy a sack for about £4. You find it at equine or pet food stores. I think as sawdust begins to rot it robs nitrogen from the growing plants.
Wouldn't the slugs just eat it?
Would sharp sand work?
Supposedly anything that's a bit rough and dry is supposed to deter them from slithering over it. Hence any combination of sand / bran / crushed egg shells is worth a go.
We use organic garlic barrier at work - like slug pellets but without the chemicals. Seem to have a fair degree of success with it. Was also recommended some sort of potent garlic water/stew thing that you spray around the place by a member of the public once, but her husband did warn me that even keeping the bottle of it in the shed at the bottom of the garden wasn't far enough away from the house.
£20 mail order (including postage) will get you 25Kg of crushed oyster shells, an ideal barrier against slugs, just sprinkled around vulnerable plants.
They are organic and will help soil structure especially if you have a clay soil.
http://www.seapets.co.uk/products/bird-supplies/bird-treatments/cage-sand-and-sheets/pettex-crushed-oyster-grit-25k.html?ref=googlebase
I've just ordered some slug gone - it was recommended in this months kitchen garden, so thought I'd give it a try.
It's made from sheep wool - has anyone else tried it??
I hope it does keep the little blesseds at bay this year.
Alis
I don't know where these ideas come from, if a slug wants your plants it will have them, these beasts can happily slide along the edge of a razor blade, they laugh at our barriers.
Indeed if you keep snails in a tank you give them eggshells for calcium, they eat them! Yet, here we all are, merely sprinkling our garden with them to deter slugs.
I believe that bran works very well, and it's because slugs prefer to eat it rather than plants!
I haven't tried it though.
we tried bran quite a few years ago and got told it was encouraging rats and to stop using it, we use slug safe pellets now :)
Some solutions:
- Weak coffee infusion made from old coffee grounds watered onto plants. Be careful that it is a weak solution as too much negatively affects the plants. Rewater as necessary.
- Form barriers around the plants from old coffee grounds.
- Copper tape
- A torch and boot heel/hammer
- A safe way of using slug pellets: take an old, small, pop bottle. Cut two 4" parallel lines c. 1" apart along the length of the bottle to create a strip. Cut the strip in half to create two equally sized 2" strip flaps. Tuck the strip flaps back intise the bottle, but not fully. Put nasty, nature-killing slug pellets inside the bottle and partially bury the bottle - on it's side - amongst your plants. This is the only method of using slug pellets that is approved of by the WWA (or similar, brain is failing me right now!). Yet to try this. Has also been suggested to me to use an upturned terracotta pot with the pellets beneath.
- Collect, put in a jar, put in the bin. They have a 2 mile memory apparently...
Coffee grounds and infusions affect different plants in very different ways. Can be a very powerful growth inhibitor - to the point of death and beyond.
I've done a few tests - tomatoes don't seem to care how much coffee they encounter, on the other hand chrysanths are extremely sensitive (I tested the edible kind) - the roots will die quite quickly.
I have a better way with something even more commonplace - in the garden.
Slugs don't like salt - but plants (except beet) don't like table salt.
However growmore is salt (of a kind) and a ring of granules around each plant will keep both slugs and snails out until it washes away - easy to replace though and won't damage the plant.
Won't always work against the keeled burrowing snails of course.
Quote from: Ian Pearson on April 05, 2010, 20:10:00
I believe that bran works very well, and it's because slugs prefer to eat it rather than plants!
I haven't tried it though.
Let's extnd this logic though, if you feed them what are you doing, you're improving the habitat for them, they'll breed, they'll be more of them.
You can't beat a torch and a very sharp knife or scissors.
Bran works because they eat it, swell, and split... so they don't breed... :-X
You got there just before me Saddad, it doesnt get all of them though. So I go round at night with me slug scissors. A chopped slug will attract others so if your vigilant you can get loads.
Both bran and scissor methods have worked well for me.......plus frogs of course. ;D
I can't bear the thought of cutting living slugs in half! When I had to chop up a worm to feed to a de-nested chick it the chopping was done with closed eyes.
Growmre sounds a great idea!