In expectation of getting an allotment I got a cheap compost bin from the local council - the round plastic darlek type.
I could not wait to use it so stuck it on the concrete in the yard and started filling it.
A year on I now have an allotment (about ten mins drive from home) and my compost bin is half full of very good looking compost but also a huge number of slugs, big 'uns.
I am terrified of slugs, couldn't possibly bring myself to touch one, though I do manage to open the lid of the bin and throw things in I have to work myself up to it.
I want to move the composter up to the lottie, don't want to waste the lovely compost I've made but don't want to transport up a load of slugs.
I can't work out how to best move the pile....
If I wait til winter will the slugs have died off? Should I just kill them with environmentally friendly-ish slug pellets? should I leave the lid off and let the slugs move out/be eaten by the birds? should I take the whole compost bin off the pile and spread it out on some plastic and let the air get to it before putting it in rubble sacks?
Do I need to clean the composter before taking it up to the lottie - I don't know how slugs make babies but would it be more hygenic to clean the bin, do they 'lay eggs'? ???
any help much appreciated... I need to move the compost bin - leaving it be is not an option as am going to move flat at the end of the year and won't be able to leave it in the yard (I had thought of just leaving it and building one at the allotment but the council have a £150 incentive if you leave your flat tidy when you move and I don't want to risk losing out on that!)
Any help, experience or suggestions much appreciated
P.S. I can post a photo if you need to see the slugs..... :-X
Maybe the best choice is to get a friend to help you kill the slugs? You know that sprinkling them with salt kills them? The best way is probably to actually pick them up and put them in a bucket (OK that's too gross for you, slugs are harmless though, wear gloves in necessary), and just take them elsewehere, the common etc and just chuck em out into the grass.
then stick you compost in an old dustbin or bin bag and move the dalek to the allotment and put the compost back.
We just emptied our dalek last weekend so that we could could move it to another area of the garden and put a greenhouse up. We didn't find ONE slug! Are we unusula?
Quote from: gwynnethmary on June 11, 2010, 11:27:06
We just emptied our dalek last weekend so that we could could move it to another area of the garden and put a greenhouse up. We didn't find ONE slug! Are we unusula?
Yes, I reckon so!
Use my friends 'hands off' approach.
He uses a skewer;
As he stabs each slug it moves the rest up the skewer, he eventually ends up with a fair old 'kebab' which he pushes off with a stick at the end of the session.
I also use the skewer method, its that or leave them for the birds, bag up and take compost to the lottie and just take the bin as it is, I have never as far as I can remember found a slug in my daleks. ??? ;D ;D ;D
I can't kill slugs or snails so I re-home them to the park the other side of the allotment fence. There is no way I could skewer them, I'd be sick.
I think your idea of spreading it on plastic and then putting it in sacks would be the best way to deal with it. Could you pick up the slugs on a trowel or something and re-home them too?
Don't throw them over the fence, they come straight back! You could put slug pellets in the bin.
Does anyone near you have any chickens. They would love them.
I get a bucket of salt water and teach em to swim
Quote from: Squash64 on June 11, 2010, 20:14:49
I can't kill slugs or snails so I re-home them to the park the other side of the allotment fence. There is no way I could skewer them, I'd be sick.
So you're quite happy to pay extra Council Tax so the Council can pay someone to deal with the slugs?
It's like Grey Squirrels, people trap them and then let them go somewhere else. What they don't realise is that if caught they can be prosecuted, if you trap them you MUST kill them.
If you don't want to use chemicals, then, if it's possible for you to lay out the compost from your dalek, slugs and all, in a thin layer on a tarpaulin for a few days in hot, dry weather, I'd think it would dry out and the slugs would die off (or go traipsing elsewhere). Or I suppose you could buy some of those nematodes that attack slugs and put them into your bin.
The way I deal with them is to either pick them up and lob them into the hedgerow for the birds to eat, put them on the path and stomp on them, or a quick snip with the secateurs does the trick. I prefer the quick methods like this, don''t like the idea of salt at all.
I find slug eggs (small and white) in clusters in protected places like under slabs and pieces of timber.
Not sure that you would be slug free on an allotment though, whether or not you take them with you.
Quote from: Larkshall on June 15, 2010, 23:19:55
Quote from: Squash64 on June 11, 2010, 20:14:49
I can't kill slugs or snails so I re-home them to the park the other side of the allotment fence. There is no way I could skewer them, I'd be sick.
So you're quite happy to pay extra Council Tax so the Council can pay someone to deal with the slugs?
It's like Grey Squirrels, people trap them and then let them go somewhere else. What they don't realise is that if caught they can be prosecuted, if you trap them you MUST kill them.
I don't think slugs and squirrels are quite the same thing are they? I haven't noticed any Council Slug Officers waiting the other side of the fence for my slugs to come sailing over so unless anyone here informs on me, I'll carry on. :D
Go for it Squash, lop a few for me while you are at it..if you like I can send you a few long yellow banana slugs to join them.. can't stop laughing, I have this picture of a little man in a dark suit with a large basket..then the headlines.Prosecuted for slug tossing.. you would have the council, the RSPCA and probably Greenpeace trying t punish you.. oh you bad girl, slug tosser. ;D ;D ;D ;D
Gotta go, laughing too much now, especially when I read the quote about the squirrells,
XX Jeannine
I like slugs as long as they are not on my patch so they are ok on the other side of the fence ;D
When I was about four we lived in a little house in Oxford, where large numbers of snails lived along the garden wall. I knew they were a bit of a pest, so I regularly used to throw them over the wall to get rid of them, and couldn't understand why the number of snails on the wall never went down!
Quote from: Larkshall on June 15, 2010, 23:19:55
It's like Grey Squirrels, people trap them and then let them go somewhere else. What they don't realise is that if caught they can be prosecuted.
I didn't know that grey squirrels could be prosecuted.
Quote from: Unwashed on June 18, 2010, 18:14:16
Quote from: Larkshall on June 15, 2010, 23:19:55
It's like Grey Squirrels, people trap them and then let them go somewhere else. What they don't realise is that if caught they can be prosecuted.
I didn't know that grey squirrels could be prosecuted.
;D ;D ;D
Now I'm going to have this image of a grey squirrel in the dock!
Quote from: Larkshall on June 15, 2010, 23:19:55
Quote from: Squash64 on June 11, 2010, 20:14:49
I can't kill slugs or snails so I re-home them to the park the other side of the allotment fence. There is no way I could skewer them, I'd be sick.
So you're quite happy to pay extra Council Tax so the Council can pay someone to deal with the slugs?
It's like Grey Squirrels, people trap them and then let them go somewhere else. What they don't realise is that if caught they can be prosecuted, if you trap them you MUST kill them.
to enlarge, this is because Grey Squirrels are legally defined as 'Vermin', and its illegal to release vermin once caught.
Slugs adore beer
Ask some one to put a container like a margarine tub half filled with beer into your your compost bin for you.
The beer can be any sort of beer. Slops from the pub or some home brew dregs will do the job. You can replace daily by just pouring the slops into the compost.
The slugs go into the beer and die happy. Beer is fine for compost.
Slugs lay eggs and each one can reproduce thousands that way so your compost bin could be harbouring loads. The eggs are like little white beads or pearls. Boiling water poured over them does the trick.
I was told that they will eat bran and that will make the explode but I can not swear to it being effective.
Yes birds and chickens will eat them for you so too will hedgehogs. Hearing a hedgehog chewing a snail, with it's grunting noise and crunching the shell is probably one of natures more disgusting sounds.
Slugs can survive for a very long time without eating anything by going to sleep.
Quote from: lincsyokel2 on June 19, 2010, 23:37:40
to enlarge, this is because Grey Squirrels are legally defined as 'Vermin', and its illegal to release vermin once caught.
*sigh* There is no such definition. The problem with releasing grey squirrels is that they are an introduced species, and it is therefore an offence under S. 14 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to release one without licence. Natural England issues the licences and will ordinarily not refuse a licence to release a grey squirrel if it was an injured or ensnared animal that was rehabilitated as long as it is released within 1km of where it was captured and it isn't in one of the areas with a remnant red squirrel population. Other than that, Natural England may well take enforcement action against someone releasing grey squirrels.
More here (http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/regulation/wildlife/species/nonnativespecies.aspx#9).