Slug Nightmare!

[Wiggletastic]

I want to cry...

Slugs are eating all my carefully nurtured little veg plants and I can't seem to stop them.

I put nematodes in each of my raised beds which worked for a week or so but now the slugs are just climbing in over the side and feasting. I have put out grapefruit skins to catch them in and go out on slug patrol at least three times a day, collecting about 10 or so from each raised bed each time! There are just so many! They have eaten everything except my nasturtiums - all the salads, courgettes, onions, beans, peas and spinach, its so depressing.

I really don't want to put down evil slug pellets but what are the other options?

Any suggestions welcome...

Oh, and I am going on holiday tomorrow for a week and have a friend coming to water but I really can't ask her to collect yucky slugs too. I fear there will be no plants left at all when I return - sob!

you need to keep collecting. lots and lots of collecting.

you might also find that some things simply will not survive in your garden.

i grow some stuff in containers, esp salad.

don't put plants out until they are bigger and keep a physical barrier around them.

I use a combination of copper rings, crushed egg shells and the organic-type slug pellets (it's all out war in my garden ) and this year I've had remarkably little damage. Could you put copper tape around the raised bed to stop the blighters getting in?

A friend of mine used to put plastic cups in the soil near the plants, so the tops were level with the soil, and fill them with beer. Worked a treat apparently

Oooh, I tried that, Jareth. Worked well until I got a dog - he's loving the whole beer/semi-liquified slug combo and keeps consuming the contents of my slug traps. I suppose it makes a chnage from him excavating the flower beds looking for cat poo .

liath, oh gods.. that made me cry with laughter. Your dog sounds like a loon!

I have just been out in the garden topping up my beer traps

You need margarine tubs / small pots and a few cans of budget beer / lager. Dig the tubs into the ground so they are level with the soil and fill with beer. The next morning it will be a slug graveyard and it can all go on the compost heap. I got really into it 2 years ago and after a couple of weeks I think I had wiped out the entire slug population in my garden, the traps were still filled with beer but they weren't catching anything anymore. Sorry slugs.

liath eeeew, beery slug soup

Yuck!!! Still, if it gets rid of the slugs, could you lend me your dog Liath?

The best thing I have found is slug stoppa granules - they are OK for organic gardening and they really do work. Copper is also supposed to work but haven't tried it

A longer term option that does help is to build a small pond or two and populate them with frogs. I have encouraged a lot of frogs in my garden & they really do keep the slug population down.

We have loads of frogs & loads of slugs/snails. I deal with snails better as I can just pick them up & add them to the bucket of salt water

We have covered the garden in pellets this year and are sealing off the holes in the wall where they live. Definately better than this time last year. We loast all our potatoes and some rhubarb to them too and they arent supposed to like that

Does the beer thing work on snails? Might be a stupid question. I have snails/slugs in a 60/40 ratio. I pick them up and smash them on the wall or stamp on them . Seems that blackbirds don't fancy slugs and snails huh? Have plenty of blackbirds. Ducks eat slugs - bonus if you happen to keep ducks, just let them roam the garden. I have the 'organic' slug pellets and they do seem to work quite well. Scatter them around the base of your pots.

I used the beer traps last year for my veg patch and they were 100% successful. After a week the numbers dropped dramatically.

Tip: Empty them every day. I had a few lapses last summer where the slugs were in the beer then got cooked in the heat from the sun. I have no words to describe the stench as I poured them out. I was sick in my mouth a little...

oh, yes. The smell from a rotting slug trap is foul.

honesty Funnily enough I rarely get snails in my beer traps. Maybe they are smarter than slugs?

I have waged a long war with slugs and snails.
Best time to collect is at dusk.

before you plant your veggies harden them off outside in their pots first for a few days.

beer traps do work well. just bury yog pots with a couple of inches of beer.

copeer around pots is ok but make sure you havent got leaves breaching the gap.

the wildlife friendly slug pellets arent too bad.

For very precious new plants I do use a few normal pellets. I fence off the area first and net over the top so that cats/children can't get in. It is the nuclear option but sometimes I see no alternative. I'm not gardening to feed the slugs.

the ONLY thing for slugs is proper blue non organic evil slug pellets.

And a torch and bowl of salt solution for the pots. Go slug hunting around now, tis great fun

Those blues are mass murderers to all wildlife. They kill slugs, toads, frogs, hedgehogs and a wide variety of birds. They should be outlawed.

Organic slug pellets, gathering them up, copper rings, beer traps, ground eggshells are all good, as is coffee grounds, that really gets em. It is also a good idea to water during the day as watering at night just gives them a nice moist earth to slither around on.

Didn't know that slug pellets were so bad. We had a terrible problem with snails and slugs in our garden eating everything a couple of years ago. In the end I put slug pellets down and honestly, next day it was like a snail graveyard out there. I felt bad for all of, ooh, 5 minutes and then sat back and enjoyed the lovely plants which grew beautifully the rest of the summer.

Left the snails alone last year, but they are breeding like mad again this year and I can see I'm going to have to have another cull.

Re: slug pellets harming other wildlife, again I haven't experienced that happening. Certainly, any years we put slug pellets down we still seem to be inundated with frogs from next door's pond.

They just seem to be the only thing that do the trick. I don't think it's that bad to use them every couple years. Surely?

there was a thing in one of the weekend papers, about green entrepreneurs, this gu was working on slug repellents, he started with coffe grounds and collected them from local cafes, apparently it's not just the texture the caffeine is bad for them too. But now he has moved on, I think, to finely ground waste ceramic, which they don't like and is non toxic.

yeah jodevizes, every morning my vegetable garden is CARNAGE, rotting hedgehogs amongst all the lovely lush green lettuce leaves.

IF you have the time and inclination to try out the million and one organic methods first then that is fine, but I prefer to get straight to the nub of the problem. Remove the slugs/snails and eat all the lovely vegetables.

Oh poor little hedgies! Luckily we don't get them in our garden. Maybe the slug pellets are why!

I have a bucket of salt water in the garden at the moment and its filling up with snails I have collected. Next door is quite wild and has loads of thrushes in so slugs get put on top of the wall and dont last long.

Hey ladies, a possibly silly question, but if you make a beer trap, where do you throw the beer with collected slugs afterwards? I can only think of bin container, but it's too liquid to throw there, isn't it?

If you have a bucket of salty water, make sure you get rid of it after a couple of days - I left one for a week last year and can honestly say I've never smelt anything like it before or since. HEAVE!

I tip my slug traps over the back fence - it's a wasteland back there anyway. Try to do it in the same place every time though, don't think the salt can be good for the soil. Beer is probably fine.