Slugs! TW for very foul and sluggist language!

[TonTonMacoute]

Fucking bastarding cunting slugs. I hate them so much. The RHS can fuck off with their 'slugs are our friends' crap. 'They only eat your lovely new seedlings because there's nothing else, they really prefer dead and rotting vegetation' says the Good Slug Guide. Really? Well you could have bloody well fooled me!

I thought it might be better this year as it's been so dry, but no. They have just demolished overnight all my cosmos that I planted out. I waited until the plants were a good size and they have just been felled. As for my dahlias, aaaargh.

I am literally on the verge of tears here. Fucking, fucking bastards...

I uses to pour nematodes around and it worked amazingly. You still have few, which is as it should, but not numbers that your garden ends up dead wasteland

Lol at they prefer dead and rotting veg😂

Op sorry for your loss. Some tips to stop the little buggers destroying your plants....sand or crushed egg shells around the base of the plants you want to save. Beer traps always work well. @UnderratedCabbage what are nemotades??

Natural killer. I used this one. There are other brands. Worked really well on the numbers.
gardening-naturally.com/products/nemaslug-slug-nematodes-40-sqm?variant=53844445921604&country=GB&currency=GBP&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17337581751&gbraid=0AAAAAD9ZOgw7qO7tJmClgnMXSP1eLpp8Q&gclid=CjwKCAjw3f_BBhAPEiwAaA3K5P1a_00ftcJ7Vap4JF4p7AnqHKVFWLdVv0fuCJQnhF1eaP_L6BpFQxoCHsEQAvD_BwE

Things that have worked for us:

• copper strips around raised beds
• nematodes as above
• Strulch (straw mulch you put on your flower beds) - reduces weeding apparently by c. 90% - retains moisture - and the slugs don't like it - love this so much that the whole garden is getting it...
• Toads - not us, but parental garden, the resident toad keeps slug numbers down...

I hear you, they broke my heart last year.
This year I went with every anti slug defence I could get my hands on.
Dahlias in really large pots, with potting grit on top.
Cosmos are surrounded with seashells.
Cucumbers, a ring of marigolds that they shred every night, and I have to keep replacing, and crushed egg shells - I baked the egg shells and then crush up.
Have copper rings I’m going to also try on recently planted echinacea as I noticed slug slime and a few nibbled leafs.

They only seem to be snacking on my hostas. I've just started spraying them with garlic water, as advised by my mother, but the smell is so horrible in combination with the wonderful scent of my Rambling Rector that I'm wondering...

Nematodes and when I see a big group of them on my patio I pour salt on them. I killed a hundred or so last year.

They are slimey bastards, I can’t grow dahlias any more, they just get attacked. Beer traps work but it really depends on how many there are around. I have a lot of snails too. I generally just avoid the plants that slugs like and plant petunias, poppies etc They don’t seem to like tomatoes or courgettes either.

I feel your pain. Our slug population has gone down enormously due to hedgehogs who we feed through winter, and possibly also a toad (although we don't see very much of her).

Yeah they are bastards.

One thing that has worked for me is putting 2 sacrificial courgettes in, and regularly cutting the leaves off and chucking them under the hedge. The slugs got for those and get waylaid on the way to my veg patch.

But otherwise, go out an hour before nightfall and go pick them all off. in 2023 spring we were getting over 200 per night. We did this for weeks and eventually the numbers started dropping.

I have used Nematodes and found them effective, but I have a big garden so it gets quite spenny. I might just have to limit slug fodder plants to one area and focus the treatment on that.

I have slug traps and slug rings galore, the biggest bag of Shell on Earth you can buy, I've been sprinkling round meal worms to encourage birds to eat them, and I know we have a resident hedgehog too.

I have heard good things about Strulch, and have some on order, but in the end I suppose it's the penalty for living in warm wet west of England.

Lamb wool pellets are working for me around the base of our hostas and dailias. I want to try strulch too to compare

Depending on the size of the plants you could try cutting the bottom off a large (1kg) yogurt pot, smearing the bottom half inside and out with lots of petroleum jelly, and putting that over the plant, pushing the rim into the soil. I protect my dahlias with unravelled metal washing up scourers, but wear gloves because these are sharp. And short lengths of holly and bramble twigs piled up around vulnerable plants also seem to help

Your sweary sluggish language resonates entirely! The fuckers have left my hosta alone, which I was finally brave enough to plant in the ground this year but they've annihilated my new pulmonaria, a lupin, my alstromeria and my phlox! Absolute fuckers! Oh and I think they got a peony earlier on in the season.

Normally when I notice the damage I surround that plant with a chunky ring of Strulch (I keep it for emergencies, not as a general mulch as I also have a large garden) but that doesn't seem to be detterrng them this year!

I think they may also have wiped out my courgettes, though I couldn't swear it was them, something seems to have just eroded the stem enough that the rest of the plant is dying.

The worst thing is I can't bring myself to kill them. Found an absolute monster of one (akin to a small snake) and just threw it into the orchard, where it will inevitably find it's way back to my veg.

Oh and the little bastards come into the house at night and do little dances all over my carpets and rugs. It's like they are actually mocking me. Knobs!

Ooooo now holly I have in abundance, might give that a go.

I was also looking up cloches today to see if it was recommended but like the yoghurt pot idea for my smaller perennials.

I’ve only a small garden…..so I can go out at night with a torch and look for the buggers. Also have a lot of birds in the garden. ===

So disappointing when the slugs move in! I’ve just planted out my squash plants amongst other things last week. I’m trying straw and gravel around the bottom of them and been fine so far. Hoping that continues! 🤞

There were no nematodes available in the U.K. for 5 weeks this spring! Every single stockist said “out of stock until May 28th”.

I had to go Evil on the raised beds (asparagus and beans) and get the organic slug pellets - they are netted and high up, so limited risk of birds or hedgehogs eating the slugs.

On the strawberry patch I pick them off and stamp on them.

I’ve not planted out any of my cosmos seedlings until the nematodes arrive. Last year the slugs ate my 72 cosmos seedlings in three days, so I am NOT risking that again.

They don’t seem to like red foliage so I have red lettuce surrounding my green lettuce and that has helped protect them.

It’s not just the damp climate, @TonTonMacoute - we need prolonged cold weather in winter to kill a proportion of their eggs. We had such a run of mild winters the slug population exploded. Last winter was colder so it isn’t quite as bad as the previous two.

Snails love straw. It provides them with a nice cosy hiding place while they eat your stuff

Oh No! Hopefully I’ve not provided them with a comfy bed. It’s a very small thin patch around each plant of what I would call dry meadow grass, covered completely in gravel. I also did it to try and prevent my cat from digging them up. 🙄

Will keep an eye out for snails. Usually they stay the other end of the garden where the pond & trees are so fingers crossed. I also don’t seem to have so many here as we now live on solid chalk which drains very quickly, whereas previously when we lived on Sussex clay we had tons in the garden.

They don’t much like gravel so you could well be fine!

Just been out and committed some gratuitous violence against several slugs and snails but I can see it's going to be a losing battle this year, especially as any Nematodes are currently unavailable.

Good point about the mild winter @MoistVonL I'd forgotten about that, I did think the long dry spell would have kept numbers down though.

When I’m feeling particularly pissed off with the number of slugs, I pour salt into a big empty yogurt pot and head to the garden.

I chuck the squidgy bastards into this Pot Of Death before putting the lid on and binning it.

I try to grow so called slug proof plants, but in practice the bastards will even eat them. I’ve had limited success with garlic water, but that washes away in the rain so has to be reapplied. And it stinks. I grow veg and anything particularly susceptible in pots which have been ringed with copper tape and that seems to deter them, though you have to make sure they can’t bypass the tape by shinning up adjacent walls and plants for example. I even have copper tape around the legs of the barbecue, ever since I got fed up of opening the lid and finding them in there. Very appetising - not!

I really feel for you, they are indeed bastards.
But I have to say how much this made me laugh! It's not often we have trigger warning on a gardening thread, and some decent sluggish swearing, gratuitous violence and a sacrificial courgette!

Love it!