In my last garden I used wildlife friendly slug pellets and picking to protect my hostas and young clematis shoots and other treasures. In this garden the problem is snails. Total destruction in my hostas so I'm gradually lifting them and keeping them in pots again to see if they recover. They've also munched their way through a brand new green and white ajuga with white flowers so it has been planted out with protection and gets checked every day.
We have no thrushes and only one pair of blackbirds and it seems the resident frogs and toads are not hungry enough to eat them so I happily squish any snail I see in my pots and borders but leave them alone in the wilder sections, of which there are currently many..
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I can say that frogs and toads do not dent the numbers noticeably. But then they cannot, if they did work as eradicators they would then starve! I have three greenhouses which are always full of both frogs and toads, at least 6 or so in each, but I STILL have to use pellets or everything gets holes in, lettuces vanish overnight. Chickens (at least mine) will not touch either slugs or snails, however my ducks love them, neither can be allowed out in the vegetable garden however. As to the flower beds, there plants have to just fight the slugs themselves, I even have hostas that they will not eat!
I captured some roman snails to try breeding them, and they will not eat these hosta leaves either.
That was 20 minutes work and that is a 12L bucket, it's a good third full. It took 18 muscovy ducks three days to finish them off!
In my small garden I find that my slugs love peanuts, so I leave bird feeders on the ground with peanuts in and go and pick the slugs off at night. Sometimes there are so many slugs on it that I cannot see the feeder. I think the record was 40 on one.
Hmmmm, watch the football or walk down to the allotment to collect slugs? What a difficult decision that will be when the World Cup starts. Maybe that beer trap will come in handy after all.
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
Make lots of money by breeding frogs and toads and sell them off to gardeners? I actually have some of the brewers yeast to make trap but I bought some nematodes this year. It's hard to get the slugs to walk the plank into the tank of beer.
At last! About time the myths were exploded! I’ve tried them all and to my dismay, the only effective method is those nasty slug pellets.
My predictions for the results of this research, based on personal experience....
Copper tape - little evidence of impact Grit - no impact Slug pellets - effective Egg shells - no impact Pine bark mulch - no impact Sheeps wool - little impact
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We have no thrushes and only one pair of blackbirds and it seems the resident frogs and toads are not hungry enough to eat them so I happily squish any snail I see in my pots and borders but leave them alone in the wilder sections, of which there are currently many..
I actually have some of the brewers yeast to make trap but I bought some nematodes this year. It's hard to get the slugs to walk the plank into the tank of beer.
'You must have some bread with it me duck!'