Bastard slimy slugs

[MrsBertBibby]

Apparently, March and April are peak egg laying time for slugs, so I have stuck my meat thermometer in the ground, established it's currently over 5°C and ordered in my first pack of nematodes.

Share your slug-slaying secrets, or just bitch and moan about the little fuckers here.

We have ducks who eat the slugs

I grew so many plants from seed, spent two years cultivating and nurturing the little beauts and then within 24 hours of planting them out slugs ate the lot. I was seriously upset. (Almost as pissed off as I was watching our greyhound wolf down my first ever homegrown strawberry crop in under 10 seconds last summer!) 😂😂 Ironically it's the strawberry-thief that stops us being able to use slug poison to defend the plants!

My garden only has plants that they don't eat now. Bastards ate all my flowers and strawberries so its just big leafy things left now. :(

Might plant a few little bottles of cheapy beer in the garden and they can drop to their boozy deaths

I always used to call this 1 pair of clogs mum had outside her backdoor her death patrol clogs. She put them on each dusk and went on patrol on the vege beds armed with her scissors snipping the buggers in half and leaving them for the birds to clear up.

I'm going to investigate nematodes! And hopefully chickens or ducks this year too!

Isnt it a bit early for nematodes? I think you need to wait until around June for it to be warm enough for them.

Soil temperature has to be at least 5°, and it was 6 or 7 when I measured yesterday morning. So it should be ok, unless we get a real cold snap.

I have been out every night this week with a head torch and some silicone tongs to drop the little buggers into salty water. The neighbours are giving me worried looks.

I think the issue with applying early is that the nematodes don't much like getting frosted. So while they will survive a dip in temperature, they won't survive lots and lots of night under 5 degrees C. If you're in Cornwall, you can go quite a bit earlier than those of us in the north. I tend to wait until I start seeing damage - apart from the odd one, the blighters aren't awake yet in my garden as far as I can tell. I am not being driven to levels of slug genocidal rage as yet, anyway.

It's been unseasonably warm in our part of Scotland for most of the Winter. The slimy little feckers have ruined a few of my pretty blue petunias (which I'm not sure should really be in flower) and then I think the cold snap killed them off. Please.

Must get some nematodes in the next time we're due a week or two of 10+C.

I find their hidey holes and expose them to the birds and hedgehogs. Turning over rocks, lifting creepers off the ground, that type of thing (they congregate under my thyme). I encourage all the wildlife I can - have lots of hedgies, birds and frogs about. Only a small urban garden, nothing special.
Sacrificial plants, too. If they're on the hostas at least they're leaving other things alone!

And Sluggo if it gets really bad. Pretty rarely, luckily.

All this in order to avoid having to actually deal with either killing them myself or disposing of their bodies. Because they are vile and gross and urgh.

Aha! You lot have got all the slugs, you can thank me later as I have all the snails.

i have bought my husband a head torch! he hasnt been on slug patrol yet

Traviata, how do you dispose of the salty slug broth?

I tip it down the drain. Is there any reason why I shouldn't?

I murder them with salt the pricks

God no! I just wondered.

had me worried there

I used to do the salting thing but didn't know how to dispose of them - realised that birds wouldn't eat them.

I now collect them in a pot and pour boiling water over them. To me it's probably a kinder way but the big plus is that I throw them on the garden after that and the birds eat them! Cooked slugs/snails. Win win.

Slugs turn out to be smarter than you'd think. There are lots of babies where I've treated with nematodes, and I think they know the nematodes are in the soil, because the fuckers are lurking on the leaves of weary crocus when they aren't munching my delphiniums.

So I am now harvesting them and throwing them in salty water. Thanks traviata!

No sign of any adult slugs, though, so I think the 'todes are working.

Nematodes are so expensive. I've got an allotment aa well as a garden and doing both all summer with nematodes is prohibitive. I used beer traps last year, half buried plastic cups with Sainsburys Basics bitter, it worked pretty well, but I'm going to put them out earlier this year, before planting out tender plants. I dig a hole with a trowel to bury the contents of the traps.

My mil brought us this slug killer which is the best we've had so far. You scatter where need it, they eat is then die in their nests or whatever you'd call it lol. I can't remember what it's called but it's brilliant. Still getting over the time pellets got spilt in the middle of the garden. And we had a missive circle of at least 50 dead bloated slugs.

Wondering what nemotides are. I'll google