Slugs!!

unrecordings

Five weeks into my first course of nematodes and i've just picked over 200 slugs off the garden this evening. I live next to woods and seem to have a major problem with the larger type slugs (4" or so). I've only just started seeing small slugs again so i'm assuming something is working, but am i right in thinking nematodes only really work on small / juvenile slugs. My other problem is that my slugs seem to be commuters so i need to figure out my nematode strategy a bit better

RedSunflower

Hi, I have been using coir in a new flowerbed I've recently made and planted..
It naturally repels slugs, bacteria and fungal spores.
It comes in compressed blocks. The ones I bought were 5kg blocks, which expand to 70 litres each when you soak them in water. I bought them from ebay in a combi deal - 3 x 5 litre coir blocks, plus fertiliser plus a large bag of perlite. That cost £21.90 plus £5.95 p&p.
You can also get smaller coir blocks, 1kg blocks which expand to 10 litres when soaked.
There are hundreds of slugs and snails here where I live, but since using the coir, there have been NONE in that particular flowerbed.
When I created this flowerbed I dug some coir into the soil, then dug in some multi-purpose compost, then mixed more coir into the top layer before planting the bed up.
The coir is a byproduct of coconut shells. The shells are ground up and used to make rope and the coir blocks are made from the smaller particles and shorter fibres are compressed into coir blocks for use as a peat free compost. It is lovely and clean to handle too

juliettet

I bought organic 'iron' pellets. The slugs go underground to die. I have 2 cats and very little damage this year.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

salt...............

trollopscarletwoman

Go out at night with a torch and knife.
you can seriously there numbers.

unrecordings

yep - that friday it was dusk, the grass had just been mown and there was a bit of drizzle. i go out pretty much every morning and evening, and i must have only picked a dozen slugs in total since then

next step is a miniature electric fence with an awful lot of recycled copper wire and a 9v battery (though i don't want to attract scrappies as well as slugs!)

foxwales

I second beer traps, I used beer traps over a few days and you can visually see their numbers dwindle as the beer traps get less and less.

The first night I put out a beer trap the pint glass was full of dead slugs, straight on the compost they went.

I buy a 4 pack of Tesco's own beer for £1.00 and I don't have to worry about anything toxic harming my dogs. :T

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

foxwales wrote: »

I second beer traps, I used beer traps over a few days and you can visually see their numbers dwindle as the beer traps get less and less.

The first night I put out a beer trap the pint glass was full of dead slugs, straight on the compost they went.

I buy a 4 pack of Tesco's own beer for £1.00 and I don't have to worry about anything toxic harming my dogs. :T

apart from the alcohol

unrecordings

think i might go back to beer traps - i used them last year and ended up with some jars of gloopy mess that stank out the garden