I felt the same as you for years raspberry but after reading Germaine Greer's article on snails I agree with blackcap.
I now feel that my garden is so "wildlife friendly" that most attempts to grow, say vegetables, for myself fail. Too much low maintenance planting adds to my problem. I felt defeated one evening this summer when I started counting the slugs and snails cleaning up under the bird feeder - stopped at 80. That's a big portion!
I know, I don't like to harm them either which is why I am going down the route of plants that they don't like to dine on, It is just that it can be soul destroying put all the time, money and effort into your garden for it to then be ruined. I am vegeterain too and don't like to harrm any animals, however snails are tempting me to do otherwise, but I don't want to harm any other wildlife. I don't find them beautiful at all I think they are totally disgusting, ugh. Thanks for all your commens it is obviously something that is a big problemo for people
My husband goes round the gerden in the evening and collects all the snails and puts them in the compost bin after they have been in there a while he puts them into an old fish tank and feeds them on herbs etc and then he cooks and eats them. Needless to say he eats alone, yuk.I tend to throw them over the fence to the chickens. They seem tobe doing ok.
Our next-door neighbour has an old bath in his back garden that frogs breed in (I think he has a pile of boulders in one end so the frogs can get out. I often get tiny froglets in my garden, and occaisonally the big ones will come in (I think there's one living in the leaf litter of the rowan at the bottom of the garden). They do an excellent job of clearing up the slugs, and something is eating the snails and leaving the shells intact (don't think this will be a frog?), I often find an empty shell under the bird feeder (the shell is entire, so it's not a song thrush).
I quite like the frogs, although one did make me jump when I was clearing some leaves off the patio, it leapt from a pile of leaves, right on to my wellies, then off again. I didn't have time to scream, but it took ages for my heart rate to go down again!
Hi Raspberry - I'm another snail hating vegetarian so I can't eat them I have the same approach as you and now only grow plants slugs don't seem to like. I have heucheras, alchemilla, astillbe and lots of succulents too such as sempervivum and sedums. These have all survived untouched for several years now so I've been taking plenty of cuttings and hope the slugs/snails will go elsewhere!
Native wild flowers don't seem bothered by them, campion, sidalcea, scabious, centuramontana etc. Dicentra, russian sage, primrose, nepeta, penstemon, poppies and anemones. Candytuft, alyssum, philadelphus and cornflower have all done really well for me but next year I am going down the route of nematodes because I do want delphiniums badly.
Muvs, why don't you try growing your delphinums in a pot with copper tape around the top? I normally do this with plants that slugs like, until they're too big to be eaten by the slimy blighters, and then I plant them out with a good handful of gravel around them. The slugs are going hungry in my garden (the ones that the frogs don't get, anyway).
I am going to lift them and pot them up - only bought them this year. Where do you buy copper tape? Online? Oh and do you use a plastic pot or does it need to be terracotta? This is the first year I've really had problems with slugs as I live in quite a dry area - Torquay - but we have cleared all the huge shrubs out and cut some trees down - they were swamping my small garden and I've had to leave 3 large sycamores and I have evergreen oaks at the side of the house. I took away the cover for the birds and I did have a hedgehog but haven't seen it this year so I'm assuming that + plus the wetter weather = slugfest2012!
You can get copper tape at most garden centres, but I buy most of mine on line. It normally costs around £5 for a decent amount. I've used it on both plastic and teracotta pots, but the pots do have to be clean & dry for the tape to work properly. I sometimes put two bands of tape around the top of pots, about an inch apart, as some of the slugs are big enough to 'bridge' the tape without touching it. If you have a plant that slugs particularly like (such as strawberries), I double-tape the pots, and stand them on gravel on my patio, this seems to have worked this year. Almost October, and my plants are covered in fruits of different sizes, no matter how many flowers I pick off, I still miss the odd one or two which are still growing!
There are plants to which slugs/snails are attracted, both in early Spring and later, but they start on decaying vegetable matter so a Spring clean-up is important. Decoys like lettuce and cabbage are useful as are keeping the birds in your garden as the snow recedes.... to eat the slugs and the caterpillars. It is difficult to protect Delphinium blossoms from caterpillars but there is slug bait for the Spring attack from slugs/snails. I have been tempted to get crushed coral to spread around Delphiniums and Bearded Irises bit I fear it would become a hazard for me afterwards; I don't know if crushed eggshells work well either.
Posts
I felt the same as you for years raspberry but after reading Germaine Greer's article on snails I agree with blackcap.
I now feel that my garden is so "wildlife friendly" that most attempts to grow, say vegetables, for myself fail. Too much low maintenance planting adds to my problem. I felt defeated one evening this summer when I started counting the slugs and snails cleaning up under the bird feeder - stopped at 80. That's a big portion!
I know, I don't like to harm them either which is why I am going down the route of plants that they don't like to dine on, It is just that it can be soul destroying put all the time, money and effort into your garden for it to then be ruined. I am vegeterain too and don't like to harrm any animals, however snails are tempting me to do otherwise, but I don't want to harm any other wildlife. I don't find them beautiful at all I think they are totally disgusting, ugh. Thanks for all your commens it is obviously something that is a big problemo for people
My husband goes round the gerden in the evening and collects all the snails and puts them in the compost bin after they have been in there a while he puts them into an old fish tank and feeds them on herbs etc and then he cooks and eats them. Needless to say he eats alone, yuk.I tend to throw them over the fence to the chickens. They seem tobe doing ok.
Our next-door neighbour has an old bath in his back garden that frogs breed in (I think he has a pile of boulders in one end so the frogs can get out. I often get tiny froglets in my garden, and occaisonally the big ones will come in (I think there's one living in the leaf litter of the rowan at the bottom of the garden). They do an excellent job of clearing up the slugs, and something is eating the snails and leaving the shells intact (don't think this will be a frog?), I often find an empty shell under the bird feeder (the shell is entire, so it's not a song thrush).
I quite like the frogs, although one did make me jump when I was clearing some leaves off the patio, it leapt from a pile of leaves, right on to my wellies, then off again. I didn't have time to scream, but it took ages for my heart rate to go down again!
Hi Raspberry - I'm another snail hating vegetarian so I can't eat them
I have the same approach as you and now only grow plants slugs don't seem to like. I have heucheras, alchemilla, astillbe and lots of succulents too such as sempervivum and sedums. These have all survived untouched for several years now so I've been taking plenty of cuttings and hope the slugs/snails will go elsewhere!
Native wild flowers don't seem bothered by them, campion, sidalcea, scabious, centuramontana etc. Dicentra, russian sage, primrose, nepeta, penstemon, poppies and anemones. Candytuft, alyssum, philadelphus and cornflower have all done really well for me but next year I am going down the route of nematodes because I do want delphiniums badly.
Muvs, why don't you try growing your delphinums in a pot with copper tape around the top? I normally do this with plants that slugs like, until they're too big to be eaten by the slimy blighters, and then I plant them out with a good handful of gravel around them. The slugs are going hungry in my garden (the ones that the frogs don't get, anyway).
I am going to lift them and pot them up - only bought them this year. Where do you buy copper tape? Online? Oh and do you use a plastic pot or does it need to be terracotta? This is the first year I've really had problems with slugs as I live in quite a dry area - Torquay - but we have cleared all the huge shrubs out and cut some trees down - they were swamping my small garden and I've had to leave 3 large sycamores and I have evergreen oaks at the side of the house. I took away the cover for the birds and I did have a hedgehog but haven't seen it this year so I'm assuming that + plus the wetter weather = slugfest2012!
You can get copper tape at most garden centres, but I buy most of mine on line. It normally costs around £5 for a decent amount. I've used it on both plastic and teracotta pots, but the pots do have to be clean & dry for the tape to work properly. I sometimes put two bands of tape around the top of pots, about an inch apart, as some of the slugs are big enough to 'bridge' the tape without touching it. If you have a plant that slugs particularly like (such as strawberries), I double-tape the pots, and stand them on gravel on my patio, this seems to have worked this year. Almost October, and my plants are covered in fruits of different sizes, no matter how many flowers I pick off, I still miss the odd one or two which are still growing!
There are plants to which slugs/snails are attracted, both in early Spring and later, but they start on decaying vegetable matter so a Spring clean-up is important. Decoys like lettuce and cabbage are useful as are keeping the birds in your garden as the snow recedes.... to eat the slugs and the caterpillars. It is difficult to protect Delphinium blossoms from caterpillars but there is slug bait for the Spring attack from slugs/snails. I have been tempted to get crushed coral to spread around Delphiniums and Bearded Irises bit I fear it would become a hazard for me afterwards; I don't know if crushed eggshells work well either.