Some biggies eat the littlies. Some eat plants. Some don't and some eat both. They lurk under the rims of plant pots and border edges and under nearby plants - not just in the plants they're eating. You need to be vigilant. I'm a believer in the snip and stamp method and avoid planting anything they are particularly partial to. The last thing isn't much help if you want to grow vegetables, though.
One of the problems is that while the big UK slugs do eat little slugs and mainly decomposing vegetable matter, the Spanish variety do eat growing veg ... and they cross-breed with our big slugs.
Auto correct insisted that the Spanish variety cross-breed with our 'big slags' ... now there's a horrifying thought (tongue very much in cheek).
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
No big slags noticed, yet, but I'll keep an eye out!
I'm trying to find the little slugs on French websites but there seems to be no mention. I don't know if that's because there aren't any littlies around here or just because they're not mentioned. Has anyone got a latin name, it might be easier to search for something precise.
But I will keep vigilant, it's mainly Deroceras reticulatum I'm finding, which are not too hard to spot. They are already on the hit list, together with butterfly eggs/catepillars and flea beetles.
No idea what they are called NormandyLiz but I can attest to the fact that they live happily here outside of Paris, and love to eat anything tender and young……
Marne la vallée, basically just outside Paris 🇫🇷, but definitely Scottish at heart.
Some of the worst slug culprits IME are the small grey ones which live in the soil and so aren't always visible. I find them far more problematic than the larger ones which are fortunately few and far between in my garden in SW UK.
I don't have a massive problem with slugs on the whole,, less than I would have expected from a garden that is generally well watered and cool. The hostas get a few holes when they first emerge, but soon outgrow the damage. I take care not to put out small, vulnerable plants, and give some protection to others that may be vulnerable when first planted.
There are lots of birds patrolling my garden though, including ducks, and voles and stoats and hedgehogs. It seems to be enough to maintain a balance and the only time I usually get any serious damage is if one gets overlooked in the greenhouse for a day or so and gets to work on tiny seedlings. They always manage to get in somehow!
A healthy bird population is certainly a help, but as has been said elsewhere, the little brown slugs get inside and under things - under pots and inside sprouts being two particular places they go to get out of sight of the birds. Toads do eat some of the ones that get under things. I've used nematodes every 5 years or so on my veg patch, and it does seem to have helped as there are fewer slugs in the veg than elsewhere in the garden. They target the slugs under the soil surface but I don't use them every year - I'm not entirely comfortable with them in principle.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
We keep the bird food bag in our doubleglazed UPVC porch as we've nowhere else to store the 20kg bags. I siliconed all around the bottom edge as much as I could where the plastic lower levels meet the ceramic floor tiles. Last year I laid a dark green carpet offcut over most of the tiles which I found very slippery when wet. Every night we get a slime trail towards the bird food but I'm blowed if I can find out whether it's a slug or snail getting in. The only thing I can think of is that tiny slugs are sliding in under the door but don't see how that's possible, it's on the modern UPVC ones with all kinds of sliding lock mechanisms.
On my calcium poor soil I don't get many snails. But in Devon the plant eaters were meainly snails. Whereas the slugs came down to earth at night and ate the pellets, tha snails stayed up in the leaves (hostas mainly).
In those dyas you could buy Sodium Metabisulphite in a sprayable form. I sprayed the leaves, but being very waxy, the spray just bounced off.
Today would be a different problem.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
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They lurk under the rims of plant pots and border edges and under nearby plants - not just in the plants they're eating. You need to be vigilant. I'm a believer in the snip and stamp method and avoid planting anything they are particularly partial to. The last thing isn't much help if you want to grow vegetables, though.
Auto correct insisted that the Spanish variety cross-breed with our 'big slags' ... now there's a horrifying thought
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'm trying to find the little slugs on French websites but there seems to be no mention. I don't know if that's because there aren't any littlies around here or just because they're not mentioned. Has anyone got a latin name, it might be easier to search for something precise.
But I will keep vigilant, it's mainly Deroceras reticulatum I'm finding, which are not too hard to spot. They are already on the hit list, together with butterfly eggs/catepillars and flea beetles.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
It's driving me nuts.
On my calcium poor soil I don't get many snails. But in Devon the plant eaters were meainly snails. Whereas the slugs came down to earth at night and ate the pellets, tha snails stayed up in the leaves (hostas mainly).
In those dyas you could buy Sodium Metabisulphite in a sprayable form. I sprayed the leaves, but being very waxy, the spray just bounced off.
Today would be a different problem.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."