Snails are another story entirely. I would give anything to hear a Thrush beating the snail shell on the steps or the stone wall just as they used to when plentiful - when I do find snails "in the wrong place" I just remove them to somewhere away from my precious plants or vegetables.
We have thrushes! I love them and treat them like royalty - suet and berries all winter long which is probably far more expensive than slug pellets! And we have just planted a new hedge of 6 berry’ing fruit bushes we”ve grown from cuttings which will be left entirely for birds to feed on.
Well worth the outlay Helix, encouraging wildlife into your garden will repay itself a thousand times. We use woodchip on our beds and borders and have no slug problems. It hasn't always been the case we used to be inundated with them and wouldn't even bother to grow lettuce or other slug loving fodder but since we encouraged the hedgehogs to multiply and the birds to visit the garden and the use of woodchip we have had no problems with slugs or snails and can grow anything without attack.
I make home made slug barriers by cutting the bottom off an old plastic pot (of which we have many) and cutting a slit down the side so it opens up. Put some copper tape around the pot and then pop it around the bottom of your vulnerable plant, pushing the pot an inch or so in to the soil. Voila, home made copper slug ring. I also use garlic spray which seems to help on larger plants like hostas. Plenty recipes for this online.
Gardening. The cause of, and solution to, all of my problems.
Snails are another story entirely. I would give anything to hear a Thrush beating the snail shell on the steps or the stone wall just as they used to when plentiful - when I do find snails "in the wrong place" I just remove them to somewhere away from my precious plants or vegetables.
Quite amusing, in the last house we had millions of slugs and snails and millions of frogs/toads mowing the lawns was mass murder. But not a single thrush. In my new house we have a paving slab that marks the property boundary against the road, and I check it to see what colour snail the thrushes are eating this week! Searching for snails I have only found 2 and not a single slug, but the thrushes certainly find them!
My son bought me a book call 50 Ways to Kill a Slug by Sarah Ford. The cover says "serious & silly ways to kill or outwit the gardeners number one enemy" As you can see below it has some fun illustration and some helpful idea's on this slimy pest.
I always thought with courgettes that the skin was too tough for a slug to bite through, so the only way they'd get in is if it rests on wet ground and it softens the skin (or it was otherwise already damaged). Try lifting them off the ground a little?
I am going to try nematodes. I am a novice allotmenter too. I have been trying coffee ground and pine needles (my mum has a big atlas cedar tree). The pine needles have worked really well in my raised beds with everything EXCEPT pak choi. They were absolutely ravaged. What could get over the pine needles for the pak choi, but not over the pine needles in the other raised bed to get to the chard? I bet while I am typing that now there is a slug munching on my chard!!
If anyone’s planning to get nematodes I usually get mine from Nematodes Direct but had an email this morning to say due to delays in production, new stock wouldn’t be dispatched until 19th June and that was only if they pass the quality control test. This is all due to exceptional demand apparently. Not sure if there are any problems with other suppliers.
Slug pubs are good... and they die happy! It doesn't have to be an expensive commercial version - I've used a jam jar half buried in the soil, half filled with the cheapest beer you can find. Emptying it is a bit gross when it's full of bodies...
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
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