Why don't slugs eat the weeds?

[Furryscoob]

I'm over run with slugs & snails this year, I've lost most of my plants & vegetables & their now munching my dahlias & lillies as they come up but they don't touch the weeds that are sat next to the plants, why not?

If they ate the weeds as fast as the expensive plants I might feel slightly guilty at the amount I'm killing every night in the beer traps.

I have never liked to use slug pellets, organic or otherwise, and over the years I've found the best defence from slugs and snails is to grow stuff they don't like. If I do want to grow anything they do like, I do that in pots which have copper tape around them. But this year the little bastards have not only chomped my fuschias and other stuff, but they've shinned into my pots, past the copper tape and destroyed tomato plants and peppers too. I've doused plants in garlic water in an effort to save them.

I keep having problems with slugs every single year. They destroyed a hosta and it's never returned since and they are destroying another. I use wool pellets and I keep removing the badly damaged leaves and leaving them on the ground to try and redirect them. Another pest I have problems with is the little green bugs/flies. They are covering my roses and they also killed off a lupin before it grew a flower. I've sprayed vinegar and I have a bug spray for roses but I'm too late this year with it I think, the damage has been done! The rose buds seem a bit lifeless

They are particularly determined this year! Most of my Sarah Raven order was munched through in a matter of days. My poor dahlias are trying to recover but I’m not sure they’ll put on much of a display this year.

Has anyone had any success with garlic water? Might planting chives help?

They’re horrible. They’re even invading the house. I got up to wee last night and felt something pop under my foot. Slug guts everywhere 🤢.

I found a hedgehog in the garden last night which made me very happy. Both for the hedgehog as I know they’re struggling, and for feeling at least something will wage war on the slimy bastards!

I heard putting cucumber slices round plants might help, they eat them instead (or for their first course knowing what bastards they are!).

I ask myself this every time I go outside and see a bit more of one of my dahlias has all the telltale signs of being munched again.

I'm seriously considering never bothering with spending a lot of money on plants each summer to make my garden look lovely as it is so disheartening looking at the damage each day.

On the bright side, so far, none of my beans have been touched, I'm taking that as a win.

We use nemaslug everywhere after rain/watering and then strulch and diatomaceous earth around the plants for snails. Bloody expensive but I hate the slimy little bastards.

I might stop the slug pellets and invest in more copper tape, that seemed to stop the slugs until the wind whipped it up and created a little slug door for them to rampage through.

Last summer our garden was full of horny slugs. At it all the time. Whilst part of me wished to protect their privacy (surely they could have picked a less open space to procreate) a larger part wanted to incinerate them all and their overly productive ways. Urgh.

I had a lavender in a pot last year. Went away for the weekend and it was thriving. Came home and the pot had slug trails all over it and one solitary fat slug perched on the end of a decimated lavender branch. The entire plant was destroyed, eaten, never to recover. So slugs do eat lavender. I hate them.

Also found snails on a rose bush last week. These are determined things

@Hiddendoor lavender! They really are committed to destruction.

Off to order nemaslug sigh

Ducks! Obviously not practical for everyone but we have a natural pond in our garden (it's usually dried up by June but is still going strong this year) and the ducks are loving life (and slugs). I pick them off the plants and throw them on the lawn for the duck buffet.
Still lost all my irises, cosmos and verbena, and my usual wild flower patch is empty as they razed everything to the ground as soon as it popped up.

I have a bucket of doom - salted water in it. I through slugs and snails into it, but now it stinks and not sure what to do with the slimy water 🤢

They are particularly determined this year!

It's the frequent rain - it keeps everything moist and they like that so they can move about easily etc.

Once the soil surface gets really dry, it slows the buggers down. We need some nice hot weather!

That’s true of metaldehyde pellets. But I thought the new (ferric phosphate?) pellets had two advantages 1) the slugs hide away go die and aren’t so accessible to birds and slugs 2) poison was not transferred to the eater of the slug.

I try to grow stuff hard - not too much water, and fertiliser only if there are visible signs it is needed. Slugs prefer soft fresh growth.

I find them and lob them over the fence I to neighbours garden which is a jungle..he doesn't maintain his gsrden infact never been in his garden in over 8yrs so I don't feel bad about it 😆 beanies plenty of good for them there

Yes, I found three obese slugs right on them (fed them to the hens).

But maybe they had help from their friends...

The weird thing is that among all the carnage there is one huge hosta that is almost untouched. It's not because of the variety, as a couple of divisions of it (one right next to it!) have been significantly chewed.

I think it's the hosta messiah....

I've got a knife 🤫

I didn't know about that so thank you. There is still mixed views on using it as it can affect earthworms according to a few websites I looked at, but it appears a much better alternative.

https://gardenprofessors.com/upon-further-reviewiron-phosphate-for-slugs-and-snails/

I've heard that melting petroleum jelly in a pan, mixing in salt and then painting on your pots will deter them, has anyone tried this.

I've got all my pots on pot feet and the susceptible plants under plastic bottles until they're bigger. My daughter's hosta, Carl, comes in at night. Also lots of slug traps with water/tesco-brand marmite (thanks to whoever suggested that) or water/flour/sugar/yeast. Drop any live slugs in soapy water to kill 'em. Apparently, the big leopard slugs will eat the harmful species, so leave them.

Wash hands after touching them.

I found slug slime on the leaves on a seedling I was growing on an upstairs windowsill.

@IcakethereforeIam I tried vaseline on cut up plastic bottles when I was attempting to grow dahlias. I used them as sleeves to protect the growing shoots as the s&s will just mow them down every time they appear. I think it helped a bit but it wasn't infallible, a bit like the copper tape. They are incredibly determined once they know something is there. I saw something on Springwatch I think about how plants, especially when they are damaged or distressed, give off a sort of chemical 'scent' that they home in on.

@CheerfulBunny thank you. Was that with salt added? I don't think vaseline by itself is much cop, but as something to hold the salt and stop it being washed away.....? <desperate😟>

@IcakethereforeIam Just straight vaseline so that's a really good point, maybe salt is the final deterent that'll work! A bit like a vile margarita - urgh!
I tried putting the copper tape on some of them as well but it didn't stick properly and mostly unravelled.

They probably do. The weeds you see are the ones that survived slug attack when they were weedlings.

I've had a bit of success buying a cheap pot of menthol rub i.e. like Vick but cheaper in Poundland and, smearing it around the top of the pot, then pressing sharp grit on to it.

It's a bit fiddly but I'm going to do it again with the dahlia and tomato* plant that are currently in pots to try and save them from further attack.

• I've never had a tomato plant eaten before but surprise, surprise, I have this year. 😡