Anyone else feel guilty killing slugs?

[Mirroredas198]

I mean it’s ridiculous isn’t it!

I was in the garden last night, waiting for the dog to do her business. Loads of massive slugs crawling about, I had a poo bag in hand and picked them all up and threw them in the big. I’m now imagining the horrible death they’re going to have. Do slugs have feelings?!

Underwater slugs are gorgeous and no trouble to gardeners 🙂 Google 'nudibranch'.

Don't poison them please, there's precious little wildlife left and all you're doing is poisoning anything that eats slugs. Get copper strips around you vegetables and anything abrasive like egg shells, that keeps them at bay.If you must kill them make it quick, nothing deserves to die painfully and slowly

My hedgehogs and magpies don’t go anywhere near slugs.

Bizarrely, as I had a furious anti-slug rant on the Gardening forum, yes I do feel a bit guilty. I put them on the compost heap or in the green waste bin. I do use slug traps (and yes, the flour, water, yeast mix works really well).
I have quite a large garden, and found applying Nematodes is a real pain so I gave up, as I wasn't sure if they were working, but they have been off the scale these last two years so I will be going back to using them again, and will start applying them early to try and reduce numbers significantly later in the season.

100%.

I would feel guilty about killing them but I moved to a new property and went downstairs to the kitchen at midnight for a glass of water only to see 3 and a half slugs frozen on the spot staring at me (You can imagine where the other half a slug was...! 😩) Very difficult to show them mercy after that.

and anything abrasive like egg shells, that keeps them at bay

It really doesn't. They can glide over razorblades with no issue, they really aren't bothered about eggshells.

I hate them with a passion after they've destroyed so many of my plants, mostly the a) really expensive ones and b) the ones I've raised tenderly from seed. I've accepted that I just can't grow delphiniums (and lupins are out too as lupin aphids decimate them and even ladybirds won't eat lupin aphids) and similar, they are never left alone until there's nothing left but a single pathetic, trembling stalk.

I put slugs and snails in the garden waste bin. They should count themselves lucky...

Not kind! Try a beer bath instead!

Yes, nematodes. I had to use them on an infestation of leather jackets. Work brilliantly.

I’m slow….please explain where the other half was.

Some horrible, cruel stuff on here. I just pick them off and relocate them elsewhere.

Would you like to die a slow suffocating death on a bag?

no?

well don’t do it to a slug then! That’s horrible!!

Anyone pouring boiling water on another living creature is not right in the head

On a bag? I don’t understand.

I thought that you were supposed to leave a dish of beer out for the slugs, letting them drink themselves to non-existence.

Stuck to the bottom of my slipper!

Ohhh urgh 🤢

Slimy little bastards, have you ever touched one? It takes forever to wash that slime off.

That's horrible

Did you hear gardeners question time today? James wong explaining the science behind why you should use raw, not boiled, garlic for your spray. Might be even more effective then!

@napody oh interesting I'll have to give it a listen, thanks for that.

I get zero damage with the boiled but have to reapply after four or five days (I think because we get very damp mornings near the moors), will have to set up a trial and see if the raw lasts longer.. will feedback!

I'd love an infestation of leather jackets! From a 70s style to a jacko Thriller jobbo, to a nineties Mac, to a rockers jacket from the 00s!

I collect them up in a bucket and put them in an adjacent meadow. There’s a river between us, so I imagine they can’t make the journey back.

I also use a seaweed repellent from Sarah Raven around al the dahlias. Seems to work. Our garden’s too big to do this all over - hence the collecting.

I do not kill them.

When I was a kid, I put salt on a slug. Never again. It bubbles and melted, and it was horrible.

I try to grow my own veg, so slugs and snails are my nemesis. I use pellets. I was fed up of nurturing a plant from seed, just for a slimy little cunt to eat the head of the plant clean off.

I know a couple who go slug hunting at night, and they chop them in half with scissors.

Yes I do, i saw a trapped slug the other day and had to let it go 🤦‍♀️😂

I hate the fuckers and they’ve eaten bloody loads of my plants but I couldn’t purposely kill one. I found a hedgehog in my garden the other day which made me happy.