Permalink Reply by Liz on February 8, 2008 at 17:29
I lived in a house once where they used to come into the kitchen at night and boy the number of times I stood on those things in bare feet...I'm shuddering at the memory.
Thanks for the link!
I'm going for John's choice (previous post) this year. I grew dahlias last year for the first time and the slugs were in heaven (though the flowers will still gorgeous. Have heard mixed reports of nematodes but thought worth a try.
There are now organic slug pellets on the market. Will check my cupboard and post the name. Will use them again - they did do the trick for me but I'd just left it too late. As for snails, I must admit I've no idea. I get my husband to squash them for me because I'm just too bloody sqeamish.
I find making the rounds on a regular basis and putting them in a bag with salt in it does the trick.
I found a slug under one of my flowerpots last year that was GINORMOUS, Alison probably heard me scream..! It was the size of a small child's fist, with a bright orange belly. The rest was dark brown. Anyone come across these?
I salted it...
Another thought - choose your plants wisely. That is what I started doing after a few summers of devastation here. There are loads of things they won't touch - ferns, hellebores, roses, euphorbia, lavender .. etc etc.
Then (if you have time/inclination) you can devote your efforts on protecting a couple of special plants from the little b*****. I have hostas in pots that usually survive, and will try dahlias in pots this year too. Might try some of the copper rings you can buy to put round young seedlings - am hoping this will help with my clematis this year.
Permalink Reply by Keir on February 9, 2008 at 23:47
Encourage predators into your garden! There are quite a few. Luckily I have frogs in my garden which helps keep the slug/snail population down, these being the main part of the lovely amphibians diet. Found this page which lists the known predators for slugs so try growing/planning your garden to help them live there: http://www.haywardm.supanet.com/predators.html
If you have bad problems with slugs in your house, follow the trails back to where they are getting in and pour some salt there. This should deter all but the most eager of gastropods.
We also had the gigantic orange bellied slugs in the garden - they loved the cat's food bowl - my daughter liked to watch them eat huge chunks of cat food!! Personally, I bag them up along with the couple of hundred snails that appear every day!!
I tried the copper ring around flower pots - worked for a while. The slug pellets just made the dissolve all around the containers and seemed to affect the plants (mainly herbs).
How are you folks doing on the grand onslaught against our slimy friends? I got in touch with my Blue Peter side last week and stuck lots of copper tape around cut out sections of plastic bottles. They now surround my clematis, which was one of the plants that suffered most last year. Not so pretty! But cheap... Will let you know if it works.