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.

Bloody annoying things....keep eating all the hedgehog food. The bowl was covered in them last night 🤢🤢

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

I found a slug in some seedling compost in the bag so maybe it came from there.

I read that slugs can coat themselves in some sort of mucus that allows them to sort of suspend themselves to survive in dryer environments/during a dry spell - they hide in a moist-ish place. Then when it's wet or at night when air is damper they appear. So it's not impossible I guess they could survive in a bag of compost.

Someone said that collecting eggshells and mashing them up and sprinkling round the plant can deter them as they don't like spiky feeling on their belly - same for gravel appparently but not tried either.

I've resorted to covering all my plants with cinnamon! So every plant looks rusty but the evil bastards have decided they even like cinnamon. The garden smells like thanksgiving though which is pleasant. Seriously at war and considering a flame thrower. It's like flipping die hard in my garden and John McCain is losing to Hans Grubber .

How do you make the marmite recipe?
Currently using Corona larger in the beer traps which the slugs love but it's bloody expensive

@furryscoob my dad always uses the cheapest beer he can find. Also he goes out at night with a very sharp knife 😞

@shellyleppard I usually use Aldi cheap stuff but this years slugs turned their noses up at it, walked round the pot & ate an entire row of cucumbers in protest.

@Furryscoob I've been getting the Tesco own brand marmite because it's cheaper. I've been putting a dessertspoon full in a mug then pouring boiling water on it to get it to dissolve (mix it a bit), then pour that into a two litre pop bottle, top it with cold water and finally add a squirt of washing up liquid. I don't know if that last bit is really necessary. I don't know if it works as well as beer, but it does work. If you try it, it'll be interesting to know how it measures up compared to using beer.

Furryscoob they are definitely posh slugs then!! 😞😂

Apparently sand around the base of your plant's or crushed eggshell stop them??

I've seen (probably on YouTube) people who protect their raised beds with two strands of copper wire and a 9v battery. Any slug/snail that tries to crawl over them completes the circuit and gets a shock. But rain also completes the circuit and would rapidly drain the battery.

I wish some clever person could design something like that but it could run off something like one of those solar light for the garden.

I keep my tomato plants standing in water, they never rot and unless the snails abseil in, they’re free from attack.

Not the buggers in my garden. Nor wool pellets, coffee grounds, cat litter, sharp grit, copper tape, WD40 around pots, Vaseline etc 🤬

Your daughter has a hosta called Carl 😂

Daffydownclock you must have special mutant buggers then

@Coastalcreeksider - I’ve used your menthol rub idea and seems to have helped.

This cosmos has staved off the wind with the plastic bottle collar and seems the slugs too.

put ring of tape dipped in salt around bottom of pot and rubbed menthol rub around the pot rim. The drastic measures!

grow bag with tomatoes had chilli oil rubbed around the exterior of the bags and they seem fine after a few weeks.

stopped using beer in traps; use 1 tsp yeast 1 tsp sugar and one cup of water instead. The slugs in the strawberry patch at the allotment love them!

I used the menthol rub method a couple of years ago when I had dahlias. I posted about it on here. I cut the tops off large plant pots and smothered them in the stuff and then placed them around the plants. They were safe until their leaves grew bigger and then drooped over the pots so the slugs and snails had a safe green highway to get to their dinner.

😂😂😂😂😂

This!!! Same here 😔

I've had just one one snail this year on the flowerbed covered in bark chippings. The other flowerbed in covered in coir carpet and the S&S have munched through the ornamental thistles. Everything else is fine.

Really bad slugs here too, they love chard.
Have been cultivating werms in the compost heap.
The slugs are winning but the werms are fat.

Yeah I've pretty much lost everything in the beds apart from potatoes. Got a few plants of other stuff but nothing for a decent harvest.

Even my pear tree hasn't produced as well. Never, ever had that happen. It's always been a decent producer. It's a weird year for growing shit.

I found a slug so big the other week at our allotment I thought it was a mouse! Leopard slug, curled up in an old sandpit. Should have taken a picture before DS wanged it over the wall (not into someone else's plot - there's a railway on one side).

I could have been in the Guinness Book of Records with that massive slimy bastard.

Because they taste 'orrible. Believe me.

I'm much happier rolling my ball of dung around than having to ever chew on a weed.

What on earth is that?!