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Nematode test bed

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  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    Generally my slugs go to the bar, get drunk and go home after. I will try again and take pictures.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    So, it's 16 days since I put down the nematode solution. It's been damp during that time. I have low expections give the previous trial I ran and given the many caveats - not said to work on adults, and said to work on newly hatched slugs, not any good for Spanish slugs. 

    4th July 21 - five min slug hunt with a torch over roughly a two square metre area of front garden - raised bed and path.

    Damp conditions. 

    Not too bad.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    6th July - 18 days since application
    damp

    10 assorted slugs including three Spanish slug and one yellow slug.

    Not too bad, but quite enough to chomp through seedlings in a small bed or nix overnight the petunias  that I was hoping to plant.





  • TheGreenManTheGreenMan Posts: 1,957
    I’d need a lot of nematodes in my back garden. I can hardly hear myself think over the rasping. 

    They give me the willies. 

    Maybe we need to start breeding hedgehogs. 
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited July 2021
    Hedgehogs need miles of open corridors to hunt in. I live in high fence city. I have cut holes in my fences, but I don't hold out much hope. The frogs and slugs are the best of friends in my garden and I have no doubt that the hedgehogs would join the party, like something out of the Butterfly's Ball (1802).


  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    As you may imagine @JamesSB - I don't put a lot of faith in nematodes, though lots of people swear by them.

  • TheGreenManTheGreenMan Posts: 1,957
    To be honest I have hedgehogs and song thrush here and I still have masses of slugs.  

    I seemed to have won my battle with vine weevils at my last place so perhaps it’s time to turn my attention to slugs here. 

    Something is enjoying my salvia carradonnas of an evening. I may go out with my head torch tomorrow night and see what I’m dealing with. 

    Have you had any success with the other solutions: beer traps, grit etc? @fire


  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited July 2021
    @JamesSB   Some of my garden at the back is covered in grit and proves no problem at all.  I have tried slug pubs again at the back in recent weeks and have caught a grand total of four slugs. I think there are far more attractive things to eat, right under their noses. They went frenzied for mullein. I love it too and it's a great shame. Foxgloves too.

    I might try a different type of beer - apparently it's the yeast that attracts them. They love peanuts, so I might try putting some nuts in the beer.  At the back, my garden is bordered by two overgrown gardens, so I suspect I am hosting three gardens' worth of slugs. There are no active gardeners on my strip of terraces for at least a block of 15 houses so I am probably attracting slugs from an even wider catchment. Many of the gardens, front and back, are either concreted over or have plastic grass. They can probably smell my luscious seedlings from 100 metres away. :D

    I tried sheep fleece, but they love to cuddle up in it. (There was no obvious food in the picture). Coir also seems very attractive.

    Tbh, this is not a 'bad year'. By me, I'd say it was about medium. If it had been a long, wet spring, things would have been much worse.
    - -
    I should say that I am investigating this out of interest as much as out of irritation.



  • SkylarksSkylarks Posts: 379
    Do slugs eat melon or broccoli seedlings?
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Skylarks said:
    Do slugs eat melon or broccoli seedlings?
    Yes! 😡 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





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