plants / shrubs being eaten alive by slugs / ants - what can i do ?

[elmofan]

I'm am not green fingered at all but i am trying to learn .
Any tips on how to stop the plants being eaten alive would be great .

Thanks

I'm a gardening novice, but have found a massive difference in the number of slugs from last year - whether it's due to the lack of rain or because of the things i've done in the garden since feb this year, i don't know.
I have a phobia about slugs, so I went to war (without chemicals - due to baby,toddler, and lots of neighbours cats around).

• pick up all leaves and debris that slugs could hide under during the day
• get rid of any pooling water
• line egg shells as a deterrent
• don't water in the evenings
• plant things they don't like as a barrier (woody plants)
• have some sacrificial plants like marigolds where they can congregate and be easily disposed of
• get chickens

If you're willing to sacrifice your plants to be rid of the vile creatures, getting chickens is the best thing in the world - plus you get eggs every morning, and they're fun to keep!

Slug Death is the only answer. Although I do use a salt solution for the pots.

What LemonLime says, and I use nematodes if things get bad too.

Gardening Which? says that organic slug pellets (safe for wildlife pets and kids) are just as good as non-organic ones.

Organic pellets are useless. You need to use the proper blue ones otherwise the slugs will eat everything you plant.

beer traps for slugs.

Use margarine tubs + cheapest beer / lager you can buy. Dig the tubs into the ground so the rim is flush with the earth, fill with beer.... wait overnight..... you should have a fair few slugs in there come the morning. Then they can go on the compost heap.

I think I wiped out most of the slugs in the garden a couple of years ago by doing this every night for a couple of weeks, they've never recovered .

For ants use semollina. Sprinkle. Ants take it to bossy Queen Ant. She eats it. It swells. She explodes. The colony has no one in charge and disappears.

Well it doesn't work exactly like that... But they it eat it, swell up and explode. And they say chemicals are cruel....

I do obviously mean dried semollina. Don't be scooping milky vats of it around your veg patch.

I~ve had success with Ant traps - bog standard b and q packet of two. Wipes out a nest quite quickly.

Slugs - I would go with Meglet's advice although quite disgusting (slug bodies floating in beer froth). Slugs love beer so one hopes they die happy... The blue pellets present a problem for natural slug predators hedgehogs and birds, never mind inquisitive toddlers so I don't use those.

I do use the organic ones and they have worked, plus you don't get the dead slug bodies that you do with the blue ones, the organic ones are a pale blue.
I tried everything, coffee grounds , egg shells, and have copper tape around my raised beds which I think needs replacement as not working so well
The one I use is called Advanced Slug Killer and has Ferric Phosphate .It is being advertised as causing no secondary poisoning of birds or hedgehogs.
It has worked so far , stopped the lot that ate all the tops off my courgettes and cucumbers in the greenhouse and the other bunch who were busy with the radishes and peas

Oh yeh meant to say - slugs hate coffee so if you use ground proper coffee you can sprinkle used ground coffeee rpound your slug hungry plants.

x-post , highriggs - that's interesting to know re Advanced slug killer.

Slugs and snails dont like copper - it gives them little electric shocks apparently. My neighbour suggested it would be c.heaper to use rows of 2p pieces overlapping to keep them off the plants. Doesnt kill them (un/fortunately)

Havent tried it yet so not sure if it works well.

Thanks

Fantastic ideas , beer is out as the dog will guzzle that but ill try everything else . I've heard garlic & water solution is meant to be good too .

Ants don't eat plants. They eat sugar, seeds, other ants. Foreign species eg leafcutters, eat plants. British species don't. Most of the types in gardens don't bite us, either. Other than getting in your food, sometimes (rarely) building nests in he lawn, what damage do they do? (Daughter of ant expert)

Thats good to know aliceliddell

We never noticed ants in our garden last year until we planted lots of Heather & lilacs and within days there seemed to be hundreds of ants crawling all around the flower beds .

Which did a test on slug pellets - organic or non- organic and both performed the same but they recommend the organic ones containing Ferric phosphate as being safe for wildlife, kids and pets