Bastard slugs.

[Pipbin]

Despite having a load of frogs and some hedgehogs everything I plant gets stripped bare by fucking slimy slug bastards.

As I have so much wildlife in my garden I don't want to use poisons etc.

What can I do to get them to leave me the hell alone?

If you don't want to use pellets (I admit I occasionally, when desperate, resort to the supposedly organic ones) then I think you need to try combinations of all the alternatives - copper tape around pots, coffee grounds, bran or egg shells around vulnerable plants, midnight raids with a torch and whatever means of despatch you choose etc. I've heard good reports of the barrier made from wool, but haven't tried it.

I have also given up growing hostas and other very vulnerable plants and don't grow much from seed, as it's impossible to keep them off the seedlings.

I've used that wool pellet stuff (it STINKS! ). I think it has an effect, but of course I don't really know. I also use the ferric phosphate pellets on susceptible stuff. I've not really d found that bran and eggshell do anything. I have yet to go down the copper tape route! Like Maud I struggle with seed planted direct, but I sow stuff in pots and trays and plant out when big and strong.

I also have a DS who likes chopping them 'for me'. Ick.

I never sow seed direct, but have found the wretched things four shelves up in my plastic greenhouse, consuming all the seedlings and some of the plug plants. Grr.

My father used to decapitate them with the secateurs.

I can't kill them directly. I have a personal 'I don't kill a living thing' policy. There is no way I could live with myself if I killed them directly.

Does coffee grounds actually work? I have lots of coffee grounds. Everything they eat is planted directly into the boarders to no chance of copper bands.

Earlier in the season you could cut off the bottom of a big black flowerpot, stick copper tape round the rim (at the top) then push the pot over the plant growing in the ground. This should protect the plant until it is bigger/tougher, assuming there are no slugs lurking in the soil inside the pot. You can then remove the pot or leave it if it gets disguised by other plants - I have a dahlia that has grown up through a pot like this for the last few years.

Black pots across the border might not look too attractive but possibly better than slug-ravaged leaves. Or no leaves at all.

Grapefruit skins are good at attracting slugs for disposal but if you don't want to kill them I'm not sure what you'd do with them. I usually chuck mine over into the field behind, they probably just slide back.

We have shallow ramekins with beer in. Quite a nice boozy death for them. Seems to work.

I think beer traps might be a good option.
I can cope with them falling in and drowning, I just can't kill them myself.

It's full size plants that they are eating, not tiny wee things. They had a whole 3 ft tall lupin in about two days!

I guess it's because my garden is so shady and forest like.

Nematodes? If indirect killing is ok with you?

I've not used them. Yet. But then I'd not grow something like lupin or hostas as I know that they'd probably not be there in the morning!

Lovely garden by the way.

Yes, your garden is lovely.

I bought some fancy slug traps that had been recommended on a thread here but very rarely remember to use them. Emptying the slug/beer gloop is a bit gross, but they do seem to work.

I have also decided to declare war on slugs. Either that or just give up on trying to grow vegetables and stick to raspberries and strawberries that just seem to grow everywhere. We also have a lot of frogs, despite my phobia of them as next door have a pond. I'

We've tried eggshells, they seemed to work last year but 90% of our pea plants were demolished by the time they were a few inches high and even after that when we tried some copper stuff we saw in betterware they seem to be finding a way round, possibly up the canes we use to grow peas up.

I might try coffee grounds next, I'm sure I can drink more coffee for the good of the garden!

I was given the lupin. I wouldn't have bought one as I know it would have lasted 5 minutes.
I might look into nematodes.

I'm yet to find anything that works. I have tried coffee, eggshells, copper tape around pots (I have a small yard and everything is in pots). Nothing defeats these slimey bastards! Good luck! Gorgeous garden by the way.

I bought slug pellets from the 99p shop as I noticed my seedlings were getting eaten in my grow house. Sprinkled them and the very next morning, 15 dead slugs and snails!

You really have to kill them hun or else they just come back everytime.

I think OP is happy for them to die - but in a hands-off way rather than slaughtering them with secateurs!

Exactly MyNight. I don't mind them dying as such but I don't want to actually do the direct killing.

I'd rather not use slug pellets as there is a lot of wildlife in the garden that are likely to eat the slugs.

Your garden is beautiful!

I have a shady garden, too, and there are some things that I just don't grow because if I try, I know I'll basically have a running battle with slugs. Lupins are one of them, I'm afraid. Maybe the easiest thing is to choose plants that are less tasty to them?

The other thing you could try is growing a few favourite slug-prone plants in pots with copper tape. I'm able to grow hostas this way. It works even better if you can put them in a shallow dish with a reasonable perimeter of water around, like a slug moat!

The organic slug pellets are a last resort - you want to look out for ones that have ferric content, and NOT metaldehyde which is one of the most awful, damaging chemicals you can use in the garden. The slugs eat them and then die underneath the soil, which helps to protect birds.

I bet you put bleach down the toilet to kill germs though so i don't see the difference with killing slugs.

Slugs keep enjoying my lettuces
Tried egg shells. Organic slug replent around plants. Still not helping. Think must be in soil. The weather not helping. Don't want to use chemicals.

That's where you are wrong Don.

I use coffee grounds and have found it really works. You have to use A LOT of coffee but luckily we drink loads in our house so have a plentiful supply.

I completely covered the ground around my runner beans, which were previously being eaten by loads of slugs and snails, and they just disappeared overnight.

I had tried egg shells previously but that hadn't worked...

Good luck with your battle!

I found slugs didn't like red curly lettuces.

I've used the nemaslug nematodes for the first time this year and it's been incredible. I've got a small garden so it's not that expensive (one of the £10ish applications covers the lot), but in previous years they've been EVERYWHERE, whereas this year I saw my first one in absolutely ages today. You just dilute this powder stuff in a watering can, water it on the garden and the invisible nematodes go in the ground and kill them! It lasts 6 weeks so I've just retreated everywhere but it's a 5 minute job. I've tried slug pellets and cutting them in half with scissors today but the whole thing makes me a bit bleaurgh, whereas with this you just water it on and forget about it. Happy days!

Also my bay had been eaten by something that I think I've diagnosed as vine weevil so have just applied the vine weevil one too to that little bed and my pots.

That's good to hear ...

Last year I was swarmed with slugs, I had entire plants dissapear after being eaten by them. From what I discovered, beer traps kill a few, but attract loads more in your garden, egg shells don't scare them at all, and if they are not properly washed they seem even more attracted to the plants.

what worked for me: hostas varieties that are not eaten by slugs. The easy trick is the ones with thicker or blue leaves are not touched by them. When I buy new hostas I go to a local garden and note the names of the the hostas I like that are untouched.

I grow my seedling indoors and wait that they are bigger before planting them.

I keep my fragile plants in pots on the porch, I guess it's too much work for the slugs to get to them.