slugs

[Minxie]

Hi all, my garden is a slug haven in the summer (really huge ones) how can I get rid of them, apart from slug pellets or salt! Thanks

[Lonnie]

There are various methods different people use, I personally, don't kill them, I leave them for the Hedgehog etc.

Slgs have soft underbellies, so you can use things like sharp sand, broken eggshell, a woodmulch, even broken glass, some people use a beer trap, but in reality, this just attracts more.

I've found that the most effective method is Brass, it acts like a small electric shock, and the little creatures recoil from it, without being harmed, you can get Brass rings, and Brass tape, the tape, which is the one I use, you put round the edges of pots and Strawberry tubs, i've found that it is 100% effective, and doesn't cost much.

[Minxie]

thanks lonnie. I am not a big gardener. But at my back door, I put out pots with herbs etc, so its on my paving slabs they seem to be. Also found huge amounts actually climbing in my wheelie bin.

[Minxie]

where would I get the brass tape from?

[shaneystar2]

That copper tape is a good as Lonnie says but a trick I have found good is ..get a big pot of cheap vaseline and a paintbrush and paint a thick ring of it around the pots about half way up. They won't go over this greaseband.You have to reapply it if it rains ..but it's cheap and cheerful and quite effective.

[buildersmate]

Have you tried the beer traps. If it doesn't work, you drink the rest of the beer yourself.

[smudge]

I place my pots on discarded upturned flat bottomed green wire hanging baskets - they work a treat & I never have any problems with slugs or snails.

[smudge]

P.S. Especailly for our Hostas.

[heathfield]

If you decide on a beer trap, and you have hedgehogs in your area, please put some sort of robust cover on the trap that will allow slugs in, but keep the hedgehogs out.

Hedgehogs love beer, get drunk, then are much more likely to be run over on the road.

[smudge]

This is the kind I mean - being green too, they're quite unobtrusive on the patio.

[Thunderbird+]

If I may tag on to this thread at the late stage. In line with some of the above answers re copper, I have found a good sourcs is old electrical cable, the heavier duty stuff is best, just stip off the plastic coating, then you can wrap the copper wire aruond pots etc.

[deemartin]

go out at night with a torch and a bucket and pick them up. If you're not adverse to killing them there are some products on the market, Murphy's Sluggit is one that springs to mind that you dilute and then water on and around their favourite plants. Usually a few applications of this does the trick.

[smurfchops]

Like deemartin, I get a large plastic dish (one that I bought food in from the supermarket, preferably without holes), scoop them on it with a garden spade (small one) and then I take them over the road in the dead of night. I deposit the whole dish (open) outside my neighbour's garden because I don't like them (the neighbours not the slugs). Next morning the slugs have gone and hopefully won't cross the road back to me.

[smurfchops]

PS: Where have all the hedgehogs gone? Don't ever use slug pellets for slugs as any hedgehogs which are left, will die when the eat the slugs.

[buildersmate]

Or they get drunk from the beer.

[Lonnie]

Sorry, I meant Copper, not Brass, you can get it from some garden centres, I occasionally use this one for mail order, and you can get it there, and ref to your Wheelie bin, just wrap it round the base. www.queenswood.co.uk

[WendyS]

I'm plagued with slugs and snails around my hosta plants so in the run-up to Spring, before the shoots peep through the soil I save all my egg shells and crumple them up on the soil. The slugs and snails don't like the jagged edges. I hate using slug pellets because I worry about poisoning all the frogs in my garden.

[shivvy]

coffee grounds spread round the base of the plants is supposed to be quite effective too. They dont like the coffee grounds sticking to their undercarriage.

[Thunderbird+]

Glad to see you dont want to use slug pellets, me neither, I could never hit the darn things with em! Seriously though there are some products that are sed to be harmles to other wildlife ie hedge hogs as already mentioned and also song thrushes, what eat a lot of snails given the chance!!

I tried some white "chalky" granules with some degree of succsess. Green and white box, cant remember the name sorry.

[markja]

thunderbird, instead of catapulting the pellets at the slugs, do it the other way round.

i pick mine up and lob them in a field next door, that way the birds & frogs get a look in.

[Minxie]

wow, amazed to see so many reponses, and so many ways of controlling the slugs. None of them I had heard of before. So a big THANK YOU to you all.