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...

We have a little raised bed on legs about a metre high, which the slugs saw as some sort of workout challenge and climbed up in the depths of night. DH had the idea of collecting beer bottle tops and sticking them around the top of the bed, pointy side out, on double-sided tape. The lettuce is now safe, but the slugs are now highly qualified in oozy climbing and have turned to using these skills in other areas, so sunflowers have been crossed off this year’s garden plan.
Revenge strategy: yoghurt bucket with hot water and a squeeze of washing-up liquid, torch, rubber glove, cold rage.

I'm here for the cocking swearing. I am a head torch wearing, mad slug hunting woman before I go to bed. I'd started a plastic pot with a lid that they get put into and then they stew in their own juices for a few days, but the stench was horrific so I won't be doing that again.
I crunch bastarding wine veavils (yes I know) with a stone and the ants clean those up over night so they are a far more satisfying late night kill.

I used to set beer traps back in my 20s when I had the energy. I then resorted to snipping the fuckers in half with specially reserved cheap secateurs. I'm now disabled and can't bend so have been overjoyed at the dry weather (from a slug point of view) However, I had a delivery of Dahlias this week from Sarah Raven and there were slugs on top of the pots. As a side note, the 'soil' seemed to be pure coir. I certainly didn't recognise it as any sort of compost that I've used. I know we are supposed to be choosing peat free these days, but this stuff is a nightmare. There can't possibly be any nutrients or water retention properties in it.

<disgruntled and massively fucked off of Whitley Bay>

P.S. I also got rid of my pond due to having leopard slugs the size of small sausage dogs.

@RainbowZebraWarrior

the complaints on social media about SR are off the scale! I've had a mixed experience this year but I think something has gone badly wrong there.

I was thinking about Sarah Raven yesterday as I admired some beautiful salvias ordered on sale from her earlier this year. I recall hearing complaints about her service/products but mine came well packaged, healthy and are thriving. Maybe just a bit hit or miss.

@RainbowZebraWarrior - my stuff from Thompson and Morgan arrived in that weird coir stuff too. And half of the leaves had snapped off.

SR used to be absolutely great quality. Their sweetpeas were always much bigger and more floriferous than the ones I'd buy at a garden centre or online elsewhere - both seeds and plants.

In the past few years there's been a massive drop in reliability and quality. I've had the wrong plants sent, plants that died en route and poor germination from an assortment of orders.

I accidentally discovered that they seem to hate burnt wood. I have a hosta I've divided, half is on a raised bed made out of burnt wood, the other half on one made of breezeblocks. The breezeblock one has been eaten to the ground, the other is barely touched.

As a controlled experiment we put our lettuce seedlings on a pallet that was burnt and for the first time since we've been in this house they've actually survived and we are eating home grown lettuce.

It's not perfect but it really helps.

@CatherinedeBourgh

thats very interesting! One to add to the repertoire.

I would like to hear about your Strulch experiences when it arrives. I looked at this and its also pretty spendy for a large area.

I have given up on hostas, much as I love them. The garlic water does whiff and seemed to have very limited effect and my one woman massacre, decapitating the little shits with a spade is more therapeutic than effective.

When I rule the world there will be serious frost at slug egg time, reliably every year.

Then of course there are the rabbits this year.

Might be my imagination or possibly wishful thinking, but vasaline around the edge of pots seems to be working.
It was suggested on some program recently and seemed worth a go.

Yes, I hadn't realised how much it cost so haven't tried it yet. Especially as I would only be piling it up round some extremely munched dahlias 😢

I am now seriously planning for next season, it's like a war bunker with charts and a campaign map. I will prevail!

Annoyingly, I can’t find it now, but last week I had an advert in my FB timeline from one of the mail order plant companies offering a very good deal on two bags of Strulch with free postage. Might be worth searching for …

Was it Thompson and Morgan - two * 100 ltr bags for £22?

Yes!

Stretch didn't protect my plants last year, and nor did nematodes. I resorted to old school (organic) slug pellets which was the only thing that worked. Sorry RHS!

I have just been down to my veg patch and come face to face with a hedgehog! I had a word, could he do a bit better, although he looked quite plump I must say, he would end up being the size of a small house if he ate all the slugs in my garden.

I am a bit worried that he is trundling around in broad daylight though, but I have a friend who is a trained wildlife rescue so I've asked him.

Your hedgehog might be a mum either prepping for her babies coming or looking for some food.

I rang my friend, and that's what he suggested too. She didn't seem hurt or in any distress, which is good. I'm going to put our wildlife camera out there, watching little hoglets devouring my slugs would be wonderful entertainment!

Please update with hog and/or hoglet photos! Preferably while munching on slimy fuckers.