Slugs!

[TonTonMacoute]

I've been reading that it's a bad year for slugs, how is everyone dealing with the plague?

I have resisted killing them for the last few years, although I have used nematodes. However, last year they completely destroyed so much stuff I'm afraid that this year I have declared war, the full Trump unleash hell. I've had it with the slugs are our friends spiel.

I have limited the vulnerable plants to two raised beds where I have put beer-baited slug traps. In just two nights I have 'caught' well over 100 slugs just in that small area.

There are still plenty of them in the rest of the garden to feed my hedgehog residents, so not feeling too guilty. Also, this evening I saved one who was just about to crawl into the trap and put it in the green waste bin.

I lay the bottle vertically, it’s harder to place it horizontally so that the slit is in a position to restrict rainwater entering.

That sounds like my garden, except the little slimy fuckers eat my campanula too.

I do have dahlias in pots, on feet, and copper mesh wrapped around the top of the pot does seem to work. Coffee grounds, crushed shells etc never worked, and annoyingly some baby foxes stole all of my beautiful wool mulch mats two nights after I put them down!

I cannot grow hostas anywhere in my garden except for around my wildlife pond. I don’t know if it’s the toads, newts or garden birds but somehow the pond is defending against slugs. I fed a handful of snails to my hens today and they went bananas.

By a strange coincidence I (inadvertently) fed a handful of bananas to my snails today, courtesy of the kid next door who chucked it over the fence. But they didn't go hens.

Thanks for the bottle tip Maggiethecat, I'll try that!

I’m finding significantly fewer slugs and think my little frogs in pond are helping but I appear to be a snail farm that would put Diddly Squat to shame.

Garden pests in general are on the rise: slugs, snails, aphids. I put beer traps out for them.