I put some marigolds in my garden went to water them in late evening and they were covered in slugs no leaves left. So first thing i thought of was salt, wrong killed everything. Still got loads of slugs. My garden is clay.
Please can you stop recommending slug pellets, or at least warn how toxic they are to wildlife and pets. Your article above uses the phrase 'less toxic' - this is misleading.
We have very few slugs in our garden, but we do have frogs, toads, hedgehogs, badgers, foxes, birds etc, which manage the slug population for me! A garden pond and regular feeding encourages these natural slug predators. Every time you put down slug pellets, you are introducing poison into the food chain.
Would you deliberately run over a hedgehog? If the answer is no (I hope it is), then why would you put down slug pellets? It is just a slower way of killing a hedgehog.
I use what I think is a common sense approach rather than an absolutist one. I have given up trying to grow plants such as lupins and delphiniums and other vulnerable plants rather that get engaged in a war involving hundreds of slug pellets. I accept that many plants will have tatty leaves e.g. Polyanthus and day lilies but still survive and flower and so do not use pellets for these. however there are certain plants, not many, where I protect the seedlings with a few pellets before they are planted out e.g. my salad leaf seedlings. The only dead creatures near the pellets have been slugs and snails. There are few birds in the garden as the neighbourhood is over run with cats and the garden is probably too small for a hedgehog. I have found year after yaer frogs in the garden so the pellets have not killed them off. It is not always possible to rely on nature in suburban surroundings.
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I put some marigolds in my garden went to water them in late evening and they were covered in slugs no leaves left. So first thing i thought of was salt, wrong killed everything. Still got loads of slugs. My garden is clay.
I am seriously considering nematodes.
Slugs and snails are defintley attracted to slug pellets. My tactic is to sprinkle pellets over the fence into neighboring gardens
We have very few slugs in our garden, but we do have frogs, toads, hedgehogs, badgers, foxes, birds etc, which manage the slug population for me! A garden pond and regular feeding encourages these natural slug predators. Every time you put down slug pellets, you are introducing poison into the food chain.
Would you deliberately run over a hedgehog? If the answer is no (I hope it is), then why would you put down slug pellets? It is just a slower way of killing a hedgehog.
I use what I think is a common sense approach rather than an absolutist one. I have given up trying to grow plants such as lupins and delphiniums and other vulnerable plants rather that get engaged in a war involving hundreds of slug pellets. I accept that many plants will have tatty leaves e.g. Polyanthus and day lilies but still survive and flower and so do not use pellets for these. however there are certain plants, not many, where I protect the seedlings with a few pellets before they are planted out e.g. my salad leaf seedlings. The only dead creatures near the pellets have been slugs and snails. There are few birds in the garden as the neighbourhood is over run with cats and the garden is probably too small for a hedgehog. I have found year after yaer frogs in the garden so the pellets have not killed them off. It is not always possible to rely on nature in suburban surroundings.