snails

mk_wotsit

I hate them too. I resort to slug pellets when the plants are young. Although i am having success protecting my hostas with crushed eggshells or sharp sand. I've also heard that they hate hair, so sweep up after a haircut or after brushing the dog!

SKIPPY54

heavysnow wrote: »

Hello, I hope some of you greenfingered moneysavers can help me out. I have just started getting into gardening this year and I am growing tomoatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, carrots, spring onions, lettuces, peas, radish, courgettes, potatoes, chives, parsley, rocket, mint, strawberries. Many of the veg I have started from seed including the peas which I have really been looking forward to eating. They sprouted about 2 weeks ago and of the 20 or so seeds that I sowed, all germinated and most of them were promptly munched by slugs/snails. Only 3 are left :mad: Also, about 5 lettuces were munched completely.

I want to use completely natural methods of slug control to keep any nasty chemicals getting into the food chain so I first tried a product called "slug off".This is like a water-absorbing gravel which seemed to work for a while but then I found it gets washed away fairly quickly after rain/watering and its expensive to keep buying new packs. I then tried the jam jar half filled with beer trick which I must say is amazing - on damp nights, I am catching around 40-50 slugs :T. I have a lot of lettuce, radish etc. in pots at the moment and I have bought lots of copper tape for these which I have found to be 100% effective. Now, my main problem is that anything I have planted in the ground like the peas, lettuce etc is still getting munched by the little blighters even with 3 jars of beer to try and attract them away. I have been so looking forward to eating my own veg. that this is beginning to seem like a problem that I just can't get on top of. It's just so depressing to see all the new seedlings popping out of the ground, getting my hopes up of my first home-grown veg - only to see them dashed the next day as they are destroyed. Is there anything else I can do?

we had the same problem last year until I went out at night and picked them up all I could see which was about 30-40 a night , all you can do is encourage blackbirds and thrushes , this year I have had none to move , as yet, the blackbirds are busy feeding their youngsters as are the thrushes, which are leaving empty snail shells all over the place. Hopefully it remains the same and the birds keep doing the job for me.....:j and the hedgehogs

katiel

Am I being completely naive in thinking that Growing Success's Advanced slug pellets hold the answer? They say they're organically certified, and the blurb says that rather than poisoning slugs and snails, they stop them eating, and they eventually crawl off under a stone to die. This won't damage the food chain will it? Or will it? Or is it still too cruel to slugs? I would really like to know if there is a downside as I have started using them with reasonable success. (And apologies if this has been dealt with before - I know we talk about slugs a lot!!)

bina72

I've used the Advanced pellets for the first time this year & I can honestly say they are amazing! I haven't had ONE single plant touched by a slug or snail. Last year all my young plants, delphiniums & lupins were eaten overnight. This year I'm growing veg too & they're all merrily getting bigger.
The best thing is you don't have to clear up all the bodies, they just vanish. I've only used them twice since March. I would highly recommend trying them out.

Nutty_Tart

I went into the garden this morning and I think the slugs must have had a party in the greenhouse! I've got one of those plastic ones & could see their 'trails' across the front & side panels - as far as I could tell they had a runner bean but oddly left the lettuces alone???

NTx

susieb

My runner beans are very sad, just stalks, they are eatign the leaves faster than the plant can grow them.
I cant use pellets as I have children and dogs, so will try the beer trap.
Can I use cola instead of beer.?

helenamy123

hi,

I have had same problems in past years, but now i have resigned myself to using pellets - solves problem well, tho have to do a daily slug and snail body retrieval - and do have to live with the guilt! lol lol

So, sorry to all my (deceased) slugs and snails...but its just gotta be this way, we need to eat too! lol

best wishes

helen x

teedy23

Snails seem to rule the roost in my garden. I,m thinking of opening a french take away.

Natty68

Unfortunately for the first time ever my poor french beans are being munched by snails/slugs. I too have only got stalks left, although there are a couple of flowers budding. So what I did yesterday was cut all the stalks off down to where there were new shoots just starting in the hope that I can divert all the energy into these new shoots. And I had to resort to pet friendly slug pellets too. I really hated doing this but it was a case of do or die!!

It was quite funny when we went to get the pellets at the weekend nearly everywhere had completly sold out. Even Wilko's and Asda had empty shelves. And there I was wondering, at the Garden Show the other weekend, why everyone was buy great big buckets of slug pellets - now I know.!!

I have never seen so many snails/slugs out and about this year, and my poor hedgehog family don't seem to be that interested this year. I think they are still hibernating under the old compost heap. And the thrushes are definately not interested either..oh well c'est le vie!!

Sunnyday

Hi all,
i found a good idea from someone on here but i can`t find it again now.

Credit to the person who originally posted this if i ever see it again, the way to get rid of the slugs was this.

Take 2 bulbs of chopped garlic and add to 2 pints of water, bring to the boil, strain and cool then top the liquid back up back up to 2 pints. Add some to water in a spray bottle to spray all around your plants.
I`ve been using it for about 4 days now and so far so good but have to keep spraying each day as we`ve had lots of rain.
HTH
SD