Slugs...aaargh

Toastie

I use the good old beer trick :beer:

Cut a can in half let the suckers fall in and they err ... dissolve

Kind of sick but its cheap

Kay_Peel

If you haven't got a blow-torch handy :whistle:

then the very, very best method is this:

Grind up egg shells and mix with grit and ash. Put a circle around your precious and most vulnerable plants. They don't like it up 'em! Get some horrible prickly bramble stems and wind a circle of it, on the ground around tender plants.

Have a few decoys around the garden. Hostas are good. Leave a clump of hostas alone and keep your fingers crossed that the beggars will feast on it and avoid the ones with 'barbed wire fencing' around them.

Next stage. Put some rubber gloves on. Get a bucket of water. Go into the garden with a lamp or a torch. The blighters will be munching away and won't hear you creep up behind them.. Pick them up, one by one. Dunk 'em in the bucket and drown 'em. Put a tight lid on the bucket and walk away, whistling.

Put as many as you can in the bucket and repeat every night, as the sun goes down. Five or ten minutes only needed. A great activity for children during school holidays, by the way! :beer:

Toastie

Kay_Peel wrote: »

If you haven't got a blow-torch handy :whistle:

then the very, very best method is this:

Grind up egg shells and mix with grit and ash. Put a circle around your precious and most vulnerable plants. They don't like it up 'em! Get some horrible prickly bramble stems and wind a circle of it, on the ground around tender plants.

Have a few decoys around the garden. Hostas are good. Leave a clump of hostas alone and keep your fingers crossed that the beggars will feast on it and avoid the ones with 'barbed wire fencing' around them.

Next stage. Put some rubber gloves on. Get a bucket of water. Go into the garden with a lamp or a torch. The blighters will be munching away and won't hear you creep up behind them.. Pick them up, one by one. Dunk 'em in the bucket and drown 'em. Put a tight lid on the bucket and walk away, whistling.

Put as many as you can in the bucket and repeat every night, as the sun goes down. Five or ten minutes only needed. A great activity for children during school holidays, by the way! :beer:

I THOUGHT MINE WAS SICK!

I like it though

jennybridger

Mine get treated to a nice drink of Tescos "best" Value Lager in recycled jars and yogurt pots which i half bury in the ground - they like it so much that for some strange reason once they go in they never come back out!!

emmilou

I bought copper tape from a seller on ebay it was a good price about £2 for 4 metres and he/she sells it cheaper the more you buy. Don't know if its worked yet though but I haven't had anything eat my seedlings yet!! I also have wrapped it around the base of the legs of my staging in the greenhouse.

squiggle37

i bought a few rolls of the copper tape from wilkinsons last year taped all the legs on my planters and bottom of pots round baskets i went a bit mad and taped anything that had plants growing in it i even wiped the tape so it stayed nice and shiny BUT the slugs and snails still got to my plants:mad:

Hope you have better luck with the tape.

emmilou

Oh dear that doesn't fill me with confidence :undecided
what a shame. I hate slugs what on earth is the point of them they serve no purpose except to annoy...like wasps grrr:mad:

Seakay

I think that you tape price is a good one, but like squiggle 37 I have no found it to be very effective. Mind you, our slugs and snails crawl around in a holly bush and on brambles and laugh as they cross crushed eggshell, so perhaps they are especially hard!
Even cheaper then Mr T's lager, ferment water with a bit of sugar and yeast (fresh or dried). Takes a couple of days in an old pop bottle with the lid on loose (tighten it to shake twice a day and then loosen again).

Kay Peel
What do you do with your dead slugs?

Kay_Peel

Seakay wrote: »

Kay Peel
What do you do with your dead slugs?

I put them on the bird table. :rotfl:

Here's another trick that I tried last year and seemed to work. Don't ask me why. I got the tip from my old mum, bless her.

I filled a clear plastic bottle with water - but not as far as the top. I laid it on its side. I put it next to a slug-tasty plant.

Apparently, the movement of the air bubble inside the bottle frightens the wotsit out of your average slug. They can hear the water moving around and they scarper like the clappers if the bottle starts rolling about.

I put it next to a giant hosta and the slugs gave it a big miss - so I'll be doing the same this year. It cost me nothing, and there was no harm done either!

FBThree

I read recently that the best method was putting cabbage leaves out in the garden overnight.... and then collecting the slugs that had gathered underneath them next morning (dispose of as you wish)!