slug & snail deterrant new old idea

[Irate]

Ive had quite a problem with slugs and snails on my broccolli seedlings and peas, Ive had some success with broken egg shells. But now Im chopping up aromatic herbs such as lavendar, lemon balm mint and rosemary and spreading them around the base of the plants as advocated by the late Juliette de Bairacle Levy, this seems to be working much better so far. Has anyone else done this? or has anyone planted these herbs near their veggies and has it worked? because Im considering making a border around my veggies next year of these plants and seeing how it works.

I had some lemon balm planted next to my leeks and it got eaten. It might not have been a snail though. Certainly wasn't a slug, I haven't seen one in my garden for years.

How did you manage that EauRouge?

I think the hedgehogs may have something to do with it- I never seen any slugs but my garden is always covered in hedgehog shit. There must be at least one of them, or it's got a bowel condition. We've got frogs too, I think they help contribute and the dry weather the last couple of years probably means numbers are down anyway.

Ooh, that might explain why the plants near my rosemary survive when everything else in the border becomes slug buffet! I've just started with some organic, child safe, slug pellets on the rest of the bed, but I'll switch to copped rosemary when they run out. Thank you for the tip.

glad to hear that your plants are ok next to the rosemary, I think I will make a border around the veg, I would love a pond to attract frogs but I think the kids are too young to safely have one,

Brilliant, I will try this! Just lost one of my 5 newly planted tomato plants to the slimy blighters. DS and I made beer traps and caught 8 snails and 15 slugs in one night! HAve also been told coffee grounds are good, any experience with this? In the past I would have got the 'safe' slug stuff but economy drive is in full swing!

Frogs definitely help here. I have an old garden gate laid over the top of mine to prevent children falling in, plus small wire fence to prevent them attempting to walk on top of the gate

When I last drained pond to clear it out there were over 40 frogs in there! It's only a small pond. I also get them living in the grobags in my greenhouse. I very very rarely see a slug or snail.

My neighbour has a sunken bath next to his veg patch for the same reason, he knows everything there is to know about gardening.

Oh yes! Coffee grinds, how had I forgotten about that?! [slaps forehead!] We used them at the beginning of the season last year, in the flower bed and the veggie patch. Both the tomatos and the flowers (whose proper name I cannot spell, nor pronounce properly!) were safe. A light sprinkle did nothing, but a good covering seemed to deter them.

I'd figured the cold wet weather was behind the increase in slugs here, but it might well be down to the lack of coffee grinds! We have a new machine, no grinds anymore. :(

I read recently that the enormous and frankly ridiculous amounts of rain we had will cause a slug/snail explosion.

Yeah, I keep waiting for that, but it doesn't seem to have happened yet...(fingers crossed!)

TBH the only thing that I find works is slug pellets (organic). I find it very pleasing that it apparently makes the slugs actually explode .

I really wonder what the hedgehogs are up to around here, I know they are about but we are still catching many slugs per night in our beer trap (and they've still had a nibble on my tomato plants despite surrounding them with spiky berberis cuttings, coffee grounds and rosemary cuttings!) Here, hedgy hedgy...

What about those nematode worm thingies you can buy, do they work?

Nematodes work really well but they die during prolonged dry spells :(

I'm going to try these this year: sheep wool pellets :)

We have absolutely tons of snails this year, bloody things