SLUGS !!!!

quarryman · SLUGS !!!!

Ok so apart from the little blue pellets and the beer or sugar mix in jam jars what other effective solutions are there. I don't really want to go down the Napalm road and have lifted over 20 of them by hand in the last 24 hours. Any ideas? Thanks in advance, Michael

wayoutwest

I accidently bought the wrong thing this week, thinking it was pellets. I bought slug stoppa, an organic thing which is basically paying for a box of grit to put around the plant, and I don't think it's working. ahem. bought some more pellets today.

chickens work, if you can let them on before you plant anything, and then toads and frogs are brilliant. Do you have water in the garden? could you introduce frog or toad sporn?

seaweed is very good, the salt kills them, and I use it to mulch around things like broad beans and spuds, but if I didn't use blue pellets now I would have no plants. it's no infaliable though.

I don't have the physical dexterity to stoop down and pick them up at the moment, but last year I went out every evening with a pot of salt and picked them off the plants, dropping them into it. fairly grizly death. I once heard of a woman on GQT who cut them in half with scissors. ewwwwww...

it's a war, isn't it? every year I try everything I can until they're eating the rows I sow and then they get the blue death. I'd rather be organic, but not to the extent of not having any vegetables.

quarryman

Thanks wayoutwest, the veg in the ground have no problems, it's just the raised beds with the salads. These are raised about 2 foot 6 off the ground and hold on to the heat very well but the slugs just love them. We have a large pond and loads of frogs but they might not want to be raised to those kind of hights. When i figure out how to post pics i will put up a couple of the beds.

Michael

blowin

Knowing that you have a pond I was going to suggest ducks . They are reputed to do less damage to the veg / flower garden than chickens do but they certainly eat slugs . The raised beds obviously present a different challenge .
I think I read that the really big ( middle finger size ) slugs do not in fact attack living material -- only decaying matter -- tho I think they would still gnaw away at any damaged spots on an otherwise healthy plant .
Have you tried leaving half an orange peel , with most but not all of the flesh removed , upside down in a shady place -- say in a corner of the raised bed ? Slugs will often congregate under it during the night so can be collected at your leisure during the day . That is quite effective for the little black Keel slugs which live underground and are the ones which really do a lot of damage . Wink

wayland

I think Ducks think of slugs like jelly babies. They love them. My OH used crushed sea shells to protect her Delphs. It did seem to work.

quarryman

Hope this works. The raised beds at the potting shed.

chook

Fruit Hill Farm http://fruithillfarm.com has some good stuff. I tried Nemaslug a few years ago and found it very effective but also very expensive.
Since then I have been using Ferramol slug pellets (http://fruithillfarm.com/cat/ferramol.shtml) which are not harmful to birds, hedgehogs etc. They used to dissolve too quickly but have been improved with a coating that makes them rainproof for a good while. I have tried everything under the sun, except Indian Runner Ducks (not an option where the garden is but I know they are very effective) and have settled on the Ferramol. Can recommend. They should work well on those lovely raised beds of yours, Quarryman.
I'm trying to design a predator proof "chicken tractor" from weldmesh and canvas to raise my surplus cockerels in to slaughter weight in the summer/autumn. The idea would be to rotate the pen or pens over the beds and have them "rotavate", clean and manure the beds. It's not a new idea, I have just to come up with a design that the birds are safe in and that works in our climate. They would also destroy slug eggs and get those little grey buggers that hide down in the soil.

chook

quarryman

Thanks I will look that up and give it aa go.

Camile

Hello,

Indeed I use the orange think and it works a treat ..

And you can surround you raised beds by ashes ... they can't go across it .. the only downside is that you need to add some more after the rain ..

and we also use some tins dug in the ground .. with some cheap beer in it .. it works a treat too ..

Good luck, the war is on !

Camile

wayoutwest

the programme, Big Dig (UKTV gardens, 3pm and 10pm, bloody brilliant hour of vegetable growing) had a woman using bran, and she said it had come top on trials from a TV programme she had seen. no idea if it would work, but worth a try?

I used ducks when we were really serious about growing veg, and they were good, but they destroyed small plants and seedlings. I use the chickens on the plot now before sowing and planting because they love the slug eggs, therefore stopping the slugs being hatched and laying more eggs....

the orange sounds good - think I'll try that this week.

blowin

I didn't see the tv prog but think the theory behind the bran is that the slugs eat it dry then it expands inside them with terminal results Shocked

. I am not sure that you could actually keep it dry in this climate , or at least not in the conditions which bring the slugs out .

Luke

Down here in Waterford we've had the first bit of rain in four weeks so I'm sure the cursed molluscs will be out in force. I cover as much lettuces as possible with plastic bottles buried abit in the ground. It's a barrier for slugs and also helps the lettuce grow. Sometimes I use sunken beer traps too but I find that this also drowns beetles and spiders.
My main method though is to go out with a torch at night and drop them all into a jar of beer. That way they can go out of this world happy atleast Razz

David

I HATE SLUGS!! sorry, just had to say that...

the "organic" slug pellets from fruit hill farm seem to work pretty well.. It might not help with raised beds, but a combo of pigs, chooks and ducks in the rotation is really pushing our slug population down.

This winter I confined ducks in our polytunnel for a few hours per day until the weather got too warm...kept all seedlings etc up on trestles, gave it the odd rotovation to open up the soil for the ducks and the slugs have been decimated...normally at this time of year we'd be inundated, this time we have zero slug damage in the tunnel. Normally it's a regular slug farm. I know the birds would damage plants, but I think confining them on the ground during the "off" season has helped. The Ducks have just finished ravaging the slug population of our spud patch, so we'll see if that makes a difference this year. We normally get awful slug damage on our spuds. It is great to think of those horrible slugs making my ducks happy and contributing to lovely eggs!

The chicken tractor sounds like a great idea...possibly a perfect follow on from pigs, who open the ground and root, leaving the ground in great condition for the chooks to scratch up. Pigs also seem to love devouring slug eggs...

David

wayoutwest

it's a shame there aren't many hodgepigs (hedgehogs for those not brought up in somerset) round here. I'm putting a small pond in the veg plot for next year, to introduce some toads and frogs, hopefully. I hate using the blue pellets, but as has been said, without them it's just slug central out there. crops don't even show, as soon as they come up they are mown flat. with the blue guys, at least they have a chance.

chook

@wayoutwest,
Please give that Ferramol stuff a chance (and, no, I'm not on FHF payroll Cool

The 'normal' blue metaldehyde pellets are really quite nasty (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaldehyde) and can kill of the few allies you may have in your garden as well as possibly poison dogs etc.

You are right, it's a shame about the hedgehogs. In our 12 years here we have seen two hedgehogs nearby - squished dead on the road. They would have quite heavenly surroundings here as we have planted so many trees and hedges over the years and leave many little corners undisturbed, with heaps of brushwood etc. but how could they possibly get to us with the surrounding lands being so open and bare of structures. Many years ago when we were still in Donegal I enquired with some hedgehog rescue place down south as to whether we could take some young ones of their hands, look after them and then release them near us but they said they could not move them as it was prohibited under the Wildlife Act.
I still live in hope, as over the years 'our' biodiversity has much increased with loads of new bird species, stoats, sparrowhawks, viviparous lizards and of late even an owl moving in but for all I know it could be another 10 years before a hedgehog makes it here and then it still needs a mate! We had a whole family in our old garden in Germany and they were great at eating slugs, munched away every night....

chook

Moonwaves

Oooh, yuck, had to kill my first slug and snail last night. Have just planted some bay plants I got and had used some for cooking yesterday. And lo and behold when I went out late last night there was a snail perched on the edge of the pot of the plant I had used yesterday with a slug making its way over as well and nearly there. Brief panic and then I ran inside, grabbed a handful of salt and threw it at them. I feel extremely cruel now though!

greentree

The little feckers are everywhere now with the damp weather after the dry spell. There is a pond near me with lots of tadpoles so I generally have a lot of frogs around which eat them. Last night there was a huge frog outside my back door and it was really thin - probably after the dry spell.

I usually use the pellets as they seem to be the only thing that works.

quarryman

Still picking them by hand. Now there are only the very small black ones. When I pick them I put them on the top of a stone gate post and the thrushes come down and take them. It feels like a natural cycle.

blowin

quarryman

Loads of tatty bits...... just like yourself Wink

It's probably our age....

Luke

I'm heading out in a minute now with my headtorch. I'm already after losing one of my lettuces last night. I put a ring of soot around them all though so I hope that works. I squished about a dozen up in the coldframe today too. Twisted Evil

keithrawlins

the little blue pellets are part of the reason there are so few heage hogs about slugs eat pellet hog eats slugs and in turn gets posioned. if you stop useing the pellets your are in for an up hill fight for the next the year as the pellets also atracet the slugs to them and away from the plants. and this stof is still in the soil. Rolling Eyes

wayland

I was watching Monty on gardners world and he screwed old copper pipe to the top of his raised beds. I have heard that this dont work. Anyone tried this?

quarryman

I do enjoy Monty Don and Gardeners World but I'm sure they make up stories and jobs just to fill up the time slot.

I'm still picking the slugs up by hand.

Luke

I saw that on gardener's world too. He screwed copper piping to the border of a raised bed to stop them getting in and then sprayed nematodes into the soil to kill any slugs in there. It seems like a good idea I'm gonna try it too.

At the moment though, every night I go outside for half an hour and cut about 50 of them in half. Twisted Evil

blowin

Copper piping and nematodes . Might be effective but certainly not cheap !

JayBee

I enjoy walking around with my manure fork and seeing how many slugs I can skewer with it. The thin tines are ideal. Saves on bending the spine.

Another thing is not to leave places for them to hide under during the day. Anything that covers moist ground makes great 5 star hotels for slugs and your veg 5 star eating.

I use big blue barrels cut in half for growing some vegetables (ring fenced with pellets). When I get my next place I am going to make sturdy frames to hang them from. Just an inch or so from the ground.

I challenge any slug to spend a night slithering along a seemingly pointless route up a wooden frame and then down a poly rope to my vegetables. Anyone up for a bet?

quarryman

Now I'd like to see THAT on Gardeners World, or Monthy Python.

wayland

Loads of good ideas. Very Happy

I suppose that if I connected my fencer to the copper pipe !!!!!!.