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Slugs/snails - the trade-off
Fishy65
Posts: 2,276
In the never ending war on slugs and snails, is the solution just to grow plants they don't like? It seems I've got to keep my Lupins in pots (big ones) on the garden table until they are huge, simply because the molluscs adore chomping they way through them.
Ditto salvias which last about 5 minutes in the ground. However I've got wild marjoram, harebells, yarrow and hyssopus officinalis that are all untouched. We get droughts where our plants start dying...then we get precious rain only to have these pests launching wave after wave of assaults. I get no help here from natural predators, no hedgehogs and haven't seen a song thrush in my garden for what must be years now.
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I have used 3 parts ammonia to 2 parts water to keep slugs away from hostas and was successful. Just use a watering can to douse the plants 2 a year
Slugs are amazing animals. I admire them almost as much as I detest them. They are cunning, sleek, unpredictable and they have the power of teleportation (that is a fact, I witnessed it several times).
After years of fruitless wars with slugs, now I got ducks. So I was really looking forward to a rain of slugs this year. That would provide plenty of fresh proteins to my ducks, and they would provide plenty of eggs to me. Win win situation (except for the slugs of course).
Needless to say this year we are having a major drought here in the Dordogne, so there's not a slug to be seen, and not a blade of grass neither, so the only thing that my ducks can forage are my (irrigated) garden plants.
Bleeping typical.
Rant over.
Fishy has used nematodes,, they haven't seemed to work!!
Theresa has said on another thread that she uses half and half, not sure how 3 parts ammonia and 3 parts water works but I don't think the naturally occurring bacteria in the soil, or the worms would like it very much.
As Lyn points out, I have indeed used nematodes. The thing is, perhaps they have worked to a degree, at least on the slugs. But apparently they don't parasitise snails because snails live on the surface of the earth rather than in it. I've been around with ice cream tubs full of salted water, a bit too merciful for these little @!$#& ?
Very intriguing Edd though I've been out with a nice salt bath. Killing life forms has always gone against the grain with me, but the way I see it, I'm just doing the job that absent hedgehogs and song thrushes aren't doing