It’s the slug hunting season, which means that I’m cycling over to the Very Smallholding every evening. This is fine when the sun is shining and the birds are singing but I’m less enthusiastic about it when the rain is coming down at a rate that would have put Noah off, as it was last week.
Last year the slugs found our tiny veg patch and demolished the only three Kohl-Rabi which managed to survive my ham-fisted gardening. On the first night of this season we lost three pumpkins in the Cow Poo beds (I offer no prizes for guessing why they are thus named). We tried putting cylinders of plastic around the plants but these were Special Ops slugs: they bypassed our defences by going under mulch and following the stems up above ground.
Fortunately Disgruntled has passed on a method for making traps which seem to work: the second night we found sixteen very dead slugs, and no plants eaten.
We fed the slug remains to the slow worms in the garden and for a couple of weeks an uneasy peace reigned with a couple of slugs a night falling into the traps, only one courgette getting chomped and a yeasty smell pervading the garden, but last night I discovered a skeletal potato plant far from the original incursions, and three very fat slugs, still on the leaves. These were quickly ejected and emergency extra slug traps laid. I’m taking salt tonight…
Any other ideas for repelling slugs?
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June 16, 2012 at 11:07 am
disgruntled
Glad it (partially) worked! Potato slugs mostly work under ground so for that nematodes are your only hope. I’ve not found them to be that interested in the leaves of the potatoes though so I wonder whether something else damaged the plant & the slugs were just feasting on the remains?
June 16, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Tony
A sharp knife. A quick jab and it it an ex slug. Leave the corpse, not as a warning but the other slugs will feast on the remains in preference to salad. Gruesome but true. And then when you return you find more slugs in a group, so fat they can hardly move, which you stab. And leave the bodies. And then….. you get the picture:)
June 17, 2012 at 9:55 pm
Andy in Germany
Disgruntled: The stem of the plant was intact, but devoid of leaves and covered in slime, with three slugs on the top branches. Now you mention it, they were orange whereas the others were black. Perhaps we have high altitude slugs here that go for potatoes.
Tony: I did the same with a stick a few times: not subtle but satisfying.
June 16, 2012 at 3:31 pm
The Snail of Happiness
You need a combination of solutions… nematodes, traps and hunting, plus encouraging predators (hedgehogs, frogs, thrushes etc) perhaps by providing suitable homes for them. Our chickens help immensely, but they are not an option for many people.
June 17, 2012 at 4:48 pm
Randall
Diatomaceous earth sprinkled on the ground around the plants should help.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_Earth#Pest_control It’s readily available at swimming pool supply houses and possibly lawn and garden centers.
June 17, 2012 at 10:02 pm
Andy in Germany
Hello S of H: Thanks for the tips. We have plenty of slow worms and lizards of different shapes and sizes, an fire salamanders which only live at our altitude or higher. I’d not heard of nematodes (or more likey I forgot about them) but I’m concerned they’d be too effective and mess up the equilibrium if the cause masive destruction. to the slugs (would the natural predators move off because there no more food, preparing the way for an influx of slugs next year?). Chickens are a goal for a year or two hence, once we’ve secured the garden boundaries so they can’t eat next door’s plants…
Hi Randall: Thanks for the link: Anything on the surface of the soil is above the mulch, and the slugs go under the mlch (we think) to get at the plants, where it is damp. I’m not sure if diatomaceous earth would affect them much down there. It may make the clay soil less boggy though.
June 17, 2012 at 11:39 pm
Randall
Rake back the mulch and sprinkle generous portions around the bases of the plant stems. Labor intensive yes, but better than losing your crop. Disgruntled’s technique is the only other one I’m aware of that is effective. I suppose you could figure out how to attract robins and other bug eating birds..
In the mean time, pour yourself a nice dunkel weiss and listen to this classic track from The Orb:
June 18, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Andy in Germany
Thanks for the tip Randall, and the video… I didn’t make it clear about the mulch, sorry. This season we are using a ‘kill mulch’ which has a cardboard base. The idea is that the brambles and other plants underneath are weakened and only a few make it through, and we can pick them off easily. To remove the mulch would mean cutting the cardboard, which would allow the light to get at the ground, which would let the brambles mount another takeover. I guess it’s a choice of what we’d rather fight…
June 18, 2012 at 8:41 pm
disgruntled
I’d pick slugs over brambles any day
June 18, 2012 at 11:16 pm
Karl McCracken (twitter: @KarlOnSea)
There’s only one way to be sure.
June 22, 2012 at 4:18 am
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