I just want to moan about slugs😠

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

So loads of plants died because of the snow in March.

I bought quite a few to replant in early June. Then it was too hot to plant them.

So l planted them last week. OMG the slug fest. Even on ones l didn’t think they ate. They’ve gone mental. Literally devoured half of them. I can’t stop the munching bastards.😭

I believe flatworms might grow another head, but slugs generally just die.

Just found this bastard on my back door and an entire family on my rhubarb. I called them fuckers aggressively and threw them in the pond.
The hand is there for sizing purposes, not because I'm trying to entice the beast into it.

Another late night prowler with a torch and a trowel. It’s quick, and with persistence and time they become fewer and fewer. My hostas are all chomp free this year.

Used to live in a marina. Slugs everywhere. My chosen method was to throw the slugs to the fish, until one day it dawned on me the slugs were simply swimming back to the bank and my plants. You could see them swimming, the water was that clear. A fellow boater tried to fire them further into the marina using a tennis racket - they still swam back! After that they got flung over the hedge, where they either got squashed by a farmers tractor or eaten by fat pigeons.

Poor little slugs just trying to live their life ..

What do you do with the coffee grounds? Thanks. Desperate also here!

It's hideous! So big!

You have my utmost sympathy. My plants have also suffered. They also come into my kitchen (I've posted this before!) Just found one eating my cat's dried food. Am grateful for some of the tips on this thread!

@Sexisthairdressers I bought a large bag of used coffee grounds from a National Trust cafe near my home. It was a £1 donation in an honesty box. When I opened them at home the next day they were a bit mouldy but I suppose that's to be expected. I just put a thick layer of them on the top of the compost around the plant pot. A day or so later I saw slug trails on it 😡
If the plants had been in the ground I'd have added.....more grounds around the plants.

Things I've thought of but not tried

1. anti fouling paint for boats painted onto pots, it deters marine molluscs would it deter land based ones.

1. an electric fence. I've seen youtubers do this on raised beds with copper wire and 9v batteries which would last about 5 minutes before the rain drained the battery. I would like to try similar but powered by those solar powered lights. I don't know enough about electricity to design it.

1. finely grated tablet soap or laundry soap flakes scattered in pots and around the plants. Obviously, the soap would gradually dissolve into the soil and I don't know if it would be harmful or eventually harmful as it accumulates.

Putting stuff that the slugs and snails will used for shelter around your plants does work. Upside down plant pots, pieces of cardboard, orange halves. You just need to regularly check them and deal with the occupants. Rehome or dump them in soapy water to kill them.

Anyway from one veteran to another 💐 🐌

Bugger, they're even on there!

Omg🤮your poor cat!

Okay, i hate slugs so much it's verging on a phobia. However, they are living beings and there are some sick, almost gleeful comments on here about how to dispose of them . At least be humane.

Nematodes - honestly, if you get the timing (and application - they need to remain moist for about a week afterwards) right they are game changers. I put one application on in April and it's made such a difference. I grow dahlias and they get devastated normally, even though they are in pots.

When we moved in had huge slug and snail population.

Started feeding the birds regularly and now getting far less, seen only one adult this season.

I do patrol for the babies in February, it all seems to help.

We used to have a hedgehog but not seen it this year, fingers crossed it comes back.

I read that the slug year begin's on Valentine's day and that if you turn the soil around in your garden then you expose eggs and lessen the number you get in the summer.

Hate slugs too . They used my cats water dish as a swimming pool . They leave disgusting silvery trails all over the patio . I don't even know what their purpose is .

It might have come in via a pets bowl brought in from outside . We had one for months until I caught it at 2 am slithering across the kitchen Floor . Out it went . No problems afterwards

We had billions of the slimey things here. The children were paid for collecting them in jars.

Then suddenly, they vanished. No snails here either.

We are now a hedgehog reserve. A few moved in and they consume every slimy thing in return for a regular supply of water, some wild borders, and carefully sized holes in the base of our fence.

Oddly the big ones don't do that much damage, it's the little ones that do more.

Hedgehogs and birds help.

I go round at night and pick them off.

Nematodes really do work but expensive on a large garden.

I plant a few sacrificial things too.

😮I will try this

I have hedgehogs , birds and frogs. And still lots of bastard slugs 🤬

I watered in my second batch of nematodes this year just this week, but the wee fuckers have already eaten so much stuff. It's so depressing to be excited about a pretty plant or a veg seedling you've carefully grown, only for it to be demolished overnight. I have more plants to put in, so might try the coffee grounds (and I need to do some baking, so eggshell might be an option too!).

I think it needs a fair amount of crushed eggshells to make a barrier, though some is probably better than none.

I save mine all year round, in old jam jars, to sprinkle around my seedlings in spring. I was in the garden this morning and the only seedling/young plant that's been nibbled is the one that was leaning over the eggshells into the earth on the other side. There are no crushed eggshells around my rhubarb, and some of its leaves look like lace!

I've just drowned a big bugger in beer, but I didn't like to kill the baby ones. I'm not sure I'm cut out for gardening... 🙄

The baby ones grow into big ones!

I've just discovered a young sunflower that's been cut in half by a slug. Grr.

I collect them all up in a trowel and fling them as far as I can into the field outside my back fence (after carefully checking for unsuspecting dog walkers)!

Someone told me about putting half a grapefruit skin upside down - they apparently climb in and you can escort them off the premises. I have half a grapefruit every morning so I'm currently trying this!