I make 'fences' round vegetables and then use copper tape and it works beautifully. It is also round all my Hosta pots and not a snail or slug in sight.
I've not got a single bean plant (that's worth talking about, anyway)still there at the base of my wig-wam. I've used nematodes and copper rings, and gone out virtually every night squashing them and the slugs (yuck!) I haven't used slug pellets for twenty years, and I'm not starting now, if I have to give up beans, lettuce and other juicy things that they love, then I'll give up.
My 11year old daughter and her friends collect all the snails they can find in our garden to feed to their adopted hedgehog who apparently lives in some bushes outside our house.
I think that the onlycertain way to get rid of the slugs and snails would be to use a flame thower on them! Seriously!! My veggie patch at the moment has nothing in it but empty grow-bags (previously containing courgettes), stumps that were once lettuces and chard, and the only healthy looking thing is the strings on the wigwams - originally holding sugar-snap peas and beans. I stopped trying to grow anything else in the hopes that the rain would eventually stop - or I decided to build an ark - whichever came first. I do, however, havea couple of concerns with the flame-thrower idea. Firstly, that I might set fire to the shed or fence and second that I could set fire to myself. Maybe the flame-thrower is a bit drastic! They'd only evolve further and become flame-proof !! I tell you, the person who invents a guaranteed method of getting rid of snails and slugs or stops them from eating my plants that doesn't endanger birds, hedgehogs, children or pets and that doesn't involve picking them up and putting them in a bucket should be awarded a Gold Medal!
Someone already invented slug pellets containing only iron which break down into nourishment for the soil. They kill slugs and snails which simply dryup (yes even in the rain) leaving only empty shells, but, and this is a big but, you have to remember to renew them about every three or four days. I usually forget until there are a few slugfulls out of the leaves and renew them - but if only I topped them up (the pellets I mean) regularly I'm sure they would be very effective. The only trouble I've had with copper tape is that the adhesive dries out and I swear the little b....rs are waiting and get straight in there before I notice!!
Would that the nematodes killed snails as well as slugs - but they don't. Since I rarely see a slug but have masses of snails, it's been a problem here in Hackney, too.
I lost all but one of my first batch of climbing bean plants to the wretched creatures but the second batch, which I grew on the window-sill and planted out surrounded by positive barricades of crushed eggshells, did better - even though most of them didn't bear until late in the autumn.
Posts
I make 'fences' round vegetables and then use copper tape and it works beautifully. It is also round all my Hosta pots and not a snail or slug in sight.
I think that the onlycertain way to get rid of the slugs and snails would be to use a flame thower on them! Seriously!! My veggie patch at the moment has nothing in it but empty grow-bags (previously containing courgettes), stumps that were once lettuces and chard, and the only healthy looking thing is the strings on the wigwams - originally holding sugar-snap peas and beans. I stopped trying to grow anything else in the hopes that the rain would eventually stop - or I decided to build an ark - whichever came first. I do, however, havea couple of concerns with the flame-thrower idea. Firstly, that I might set fire to the shed or fence and second that I could set fire to myself. Maybe the flame-thrower is a bit drastic! They'd only evolve further and become flame-proof !! I tell you, the person who invents a guaranteed method of getting rid of snails and slugs or stops them from eating my plants that doesn't endanger birds, hedgehogs, children or pets and that doesn't involve picking them up and putting them in a bucket should be awarded a Gold Medal!
Someone already invented slug pellets containing only iron which break down into nourishment for the soil. They kill slugs and snails which simply dryup (yes even in the rain) leaving only empty shells, but, and this is a big but, you have to remember to renew them about every three or four days. I usually forget until there are a few slugfulls out of the leaves and renew them - but if only I topped them up (the pellets I mean) regularly I'm sure they would be very effective. The only trouble I've had with copper tape is that the adhesive dries out and I swear the little b....rs are waiting and get straight in there before I notice!!
Good Hunting!
I lost all but one of my first batch of climbing bean plants to the wretched creatures but the second batch, which I grew on the window-sill and planted out surrounded by positive barricades of crushed eggshells, did better - even though most of them didn't bear until late in the autumn.