If you can afford it, buy lettuces and scatter leaves around your plants. Since doing this my delphs haven't been touched and its buying them valuable time to grow on
while googling about a yellow slugs i keep finding i found a page of info on slugs and what they eat, to my surprise leopard slugs eat dead stuff not live plants and they also eat other slugs, i didn't know this and presumed they were the big baddie i suppose as they are so huge and had been putting them in the green bin with the other slugs and snails. I shall stop doing that now i know they are a gardeners friend. I went out earlier and found the usual yellow one and watched a leopard slug on one of my young plants, not a bit out of it and it was up higher than it's length and it went over the edge of the leaf and stretched itself like 'stretch armstrong' until it reached the soil, fascinating.
I find that my established perennials cope ok with a bit of slug nibbling and I protect anything newly planted with copper rings which seem to keep the slugs and snails (which are actually far worse than slugs in my garden) at bay.
I did a little check up on slugs as well Sanjy67 and the leopard slug does indeed eat decaying matter and other slugs BUT it is an omnivore- it eats fungi but also seedlings, apparently at a rate faster than they can recover. Yesterday I applied my first dose of Nemaslug and I hope that it works.
One gristly tip that I have read is to propagate the nematodes by collecting lots of slugs and putting them on an island of leaves in the middle of a bucket, pouring water around the leaf island in the bucket and then adding a teaspoon of the Nemaslug to the water then covering it all up with tiny holes in the lid....it sounds terrible but if they are going to die from the Nemaslug anyway, you might as well make use of that to get a bumper crop of more nematodes AND the slugs die well fed, chomping away on the delicious leaves. Once they die, you apparently fill the bucket with clean water, filter out and throw away the stuff-too-horrible-to-mention, and use the nematode crop to apply to your garden, reserving a bit to propagate more nematodes via the method aforementioned. I did say it was gristly.... For a slug-free garden and allotment though?? I have just the bucket in mind to begin!
We're also struggling massively at the moment, they've completely abolished my poor tulips. Definitely planting in pots next year.. Anyway, I'm trying everything apart from pellets because most contain Metaldehyde or the less common Methiocarb which harm pets and hedgehogs. If you have to then spread thinly. Hedgehogs are natural eaters of slugs, so attracting them to your garden can be helpful! (chicken/meat flavoured cat biscuits in a feeding station to stop cats and foxes).
Apparently ducks and toads are the best slug eaters Mark56- I read that hedgehogs do not eat as many slugs as we think and that it is bad for them as well: http://thehedgehog.co.uk/feeding-hedgehogs/slugs-and-snails/ It says there that slugs are the primary carriers of the lung worm, which is the biggest killer of hedgehogs after humans. I'm not sure of your space limitations or if you can keep or want ducks but maybe a small, sunken tub for a mini-pond and some cover to attract toads?
I discovered that I have square-spot rustic caterpillars devouring my garden at night (they're nocturnal) but I also have slugs attacking my alliums. Some slugs got into the raised bed, which I constructed a mini-greenhouse cover for, and were at my celery seedlings and the few artichoke seedlings to survive my transplanting disaster a few weeks ago! I am engaged in early hostilities in the eternal Pest War at the moment....
I will see if I can persuade the family with the prospect of some ducks Anomander although we do have a resident fox visiting nightly! It's true about hedgehogs but the amount of slugs carrying lungworm is quite low, however, the south suffers more. I'm willing to take all the help I can get here, it seems like a slug breeding ground.
Verdun, I agree it also concerns me greatly. I'll try the lettuce technique, are they fussy in taste or will iceberg do? I've also ordered nemaslug last week (it'll be my first time using it) but it hasn't arrived yet. The main perk to nemaslug is that it doesn't harm hedgehogs/pets or any aspect of wildlife at all. Win win.
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I tried the sheeps wool pellets a couple of years ago and they seemed to work. Bit pricey though.
I agree quite pricey but has the dual function of being a mulch.
If you can afford it, buy lettuces and scatter leaves around your plants. Since doing this my delphs haven't been touched and its buying them valuable time to grow on
while googling about a yellow slugs i keep finding i found a page of info on slugs and what they eat, to my surprise leopard slugs eat dead stuff not live plants and they also eat other slugs, i didn't know this and presumed they were the big baddie i suppose as they are so huge and had been putting them in the green bin with the other slugs and snails. I shall stop doing that now i know they are a gardeners friend. I went out earlier and found the usual yellow one and watched a leopard slug on one of my young plants, not a bit out of it and it was up higher than it's length and it went over the edge of the leaf and stretched itself like 'stretch armstrong' until it reached the soil, fascinating.
I find that my established perennials cope ok with a bit of slug nibbling and I protect anything newly planted with copper rings which seem to keep the slugs and snails (which are actually far worse than slugs in my garden) at bay.
I did a little check up on slugs as well Sanjy67 and the leopard slug does indeed eat decaying matter and other slugs BUT it is an omnivore- it eats fungi but also seedlings, apparently at a rate faster than they can recover. Yesterday I applied my first dose of Nemaslug and I hope that it works.
One gristly tip that I have read is to propagate the nematodes by collecting lots of slugs and putting them on an island of leaves in the middle of a bucket, pouring water around the leaf island in the bucket and then adding a teaspoon of the Nemaslug to the water then covering it all up with tiny holes in the lid....it sounds terrible but if they are going to die from the Nemaslug anyway, you might as well make use of that to get a bumper crop of more nematodes AND the slugs die well fed, chomping away on the delicious leaves. Once they die, you apparently fill the bucket with clean water, filter out and throw away the stuff-too-horrible-to-mention, and use the nematode crop to apply to your garden, reserving a bit to propagate more nematodes via the method aforementioned. I did say it was gristly....
For a slug-free garden and allotment though?? I have just the bucket in mind to begin!
We're also struggling massively at the moment, they've completely abolished my poor tulips. Definitely planting in pots next year.. Anyway, I'm trying everything apart from pellets because most contain Metaldehyde or the less common Methiocarb which harm pets and hedgehogs. If you have to then spread thinly. Hedgehogs are natural eaters of slugs, so attracting them to your garden can be helpful! (chicken/meat flavoured cat biscuits in a feeding station to stop cats and foxes).
Apparently ducks and toads are the best slug eaters Mark56- I read that hedgehogs do not eat as many slugs as we think and that it is bad for them as well: http://thehedgehog.co.uk/feeding-hedgehogs/slugs-and-snails/ It says there that slugs are the primary carriers of the lung worm, which is the biggest killer of hedgehogs after humans. I'm not sure of your space limitations or if you can keep or want ducks but maybe a small, sunken tub for a mini-pond and some cover to attract toads?
I discovered that I have square-spot rustic caterpillars devouring my garden at night (they're nocturnal) but I also have slugs attacking my alliums. Some slugs got into the raised bed, which I constructed a mini-greenhouse cover for, and were at my celery seedlings and the few artichoke seedlings to survive my transplanting disaster a few weeks ago! I am engaged in early hostilities in the eternal Pest War at the moment....
I will see if I can persuade the family with the prospect of some ducks Anomander
although we do have a resident fox visiting nightly! It's true about hedgehogs but the amount of slugs carrying lungworm is quite low, however, the south suffers more. I'm willing to take all the help I can get here, it seems like a slug breeding ground.
Verdun, I agree it also concerns me greatly. I'll try the lettuce technique, are they fussy in taste or will iceberg do?
I've also ordered nemaslug last week (it'll be my first time using it) but it hasn't arrived yet. The main perk to nemaslug is that it doesn't harm hedgehogs/pets or any aspect of wildlife at all. Win win.