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.

Yes I think the garlic water has helped this year, along with copper tape. Trouble is it gets washed off in the rain! Copper mesh has been the game changer though around my veg plants. Also a ring of salt around pots on the patio.

Doesn't work though crushed eggshell may help to create a hostile environment combined with other methods.

Thanks @SharonEllis ill give the garlic water a go.

I’ve also got an ant problem in my pots I noticed yesterday. The garden beasts are taking over!

Lily beetles are bright red, and capable of stripping a lily or fritillary to its stem. The slightest movement in their vicinity and they drop upside down to the soil, where their brown undersides are perfectly camouflaged. Their bright orange larvae conceal themselves under their own faeces.

The adult lily beetles are very pretty. I show them no mercy. In the spring I keep a medicine spoon in my pocket. If I see one I, carefully, put the spoon under them and give them a tap. Nine times out of ten they fall into the spoon and I'll squash them. The ones that escape usually climb back to the top of the plant and I'll get them the next time around. I'm a bit fat fingered to just catch them.

Their eggs are also red, so can be squash or picked off. I've never seen a larvae except years ago when I grew some lilies and the beetles were still quite new to the country, so I was caught on the hop.

One good thing about the cold start to the year is the I only saw one lily beetle, although it did escape 😠

Yes garlic water and copper mesh rings around the daliah growth seems to be working