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Slugs.. sod the organic approach I just want them dead!

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  • sunnysarahsunnysarah Posts: 62

    I`ve got them, they don't work image

     

  • rosemummyrosemummy Posts: 2,010

    i did ok with slug pubs emptied and refilled every 2-3 days plus crushed eggshells though have got bird friendly pellets now too as easier when pushed for time, also have front and back gardens to defend!

  • Fishy65Fishy65 Posts: 2,276
    OK I've been looking on youtube and there's a chap who has a top 10 of snail/slug deterrents. One that appeals to me is using bramble.He likes work with nature and using a bramble's thorns in your favour is surely doing that. I've laid a kind of nest around each Foxglove with short pieces of bramble.I suppose its the snail's equivalent of barbed wire and judging by the way I was jabbed it 'might' just work? We can but try I suppose and I'll let you know how it goes.
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  • DaisyheadcaseDaisyheadcase Posts: 315

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    Caral, you made me laugh when you mentioned training your sons.  My son, now 12 is an expert slug hunter and loves to pick them off with his bare hands (ugh!).  And now my under-gardener, who is growing potatoes and onions for the first time this year (when we met he swore I would NEVER get him into gardening) insisted on dragging me out for a second time tonight after I reported finding four slugs munching his precious potato plants.  We found another 20 or so.  Add that to the four slugs and 18 snails I found earlier on and I think we've done well tonight.

     

    Can I just reiterate for those who are contemplating grit or bramble around your plants you need a COPPER RING.  Slugs and snails are physically unable to cross copper.  I've tried grit, coffee grounds, crushed eggshells, you name it.  Cut up a large plastic pop/water bottle and put some copper tape round then pop it around your beloved plant.  It does work.  And a beer trap or two near them as well can't hurt. And hunt them down every night.  The two pictures above show the lovely Dahlia Arabian night which I bought as a tuber shooting but protected, and the second picture shows it later on in the year.  Copper tape is your friend in the war against the molluscs.

    Good luck!

     

  • Percy-GrowerPercy-Grower Posts: 253

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     This was taken last night while out on a slug hunt, we find leaving an alligator to guard the Hostas to be a very effective deterrent image

  • CaralCaral Posts: 301

    Haha! Daisyheadcase, "under-gardener" - love it! Well done him, a great night's work for you both.  

    I spend ages slug hunting last night. Gosh, they are brazen little fellows. On stepping into the garden I immediately found two sliming across the steps towards the lupins and two snails sloping up the wall that were so big, they would have made the Galapagos Islands proud!  Removed around 20 odd slugs, (bearing in mind I already had a trug full from the afternoon) plus 4 snails, that were quickly dispatched into the river - the plop, splash was a most satisfying sound. image

    As I was heading back inside I decided to check the containers. That's when I discovered the Creche and removed 32 slugs from one container, 6 in the soil and the rest nestled in a large lobelia. And to my total indignance the twigs supports for my potted sweetpeas were being used as a 'highway' to move into the herbs! - What a liberty.    

  • CaralCaral Posts: 301

    I think I need some copper tape for the containers, so will have to go to the local garden centre today...oh what a shame. image  

  • Peat BPeat B Posts: 441

    Verdun,   you could try throwing a couple of stale Warren's pasties at the slugs. That'd sort the wee molluscs out !

  • sunnysarahsunnysarah Posts: 62

    Must have been the night for slug hunting, as I was out too. I quite like the fact that all across the country there are little gardners going out with their torches collecting and disposing of these little devils!. I was quite pround of my stash but also horrified as to how many there were. The copper rings look good but what happens when the plant grows and flops over the ring?

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