Agri Vehicles Insurance from Greenlands

Author Topic: SLUG WARS!!!!  (Read 7977 times)

Factotum

  • Joined Jun 2012
Re: SLUG WARS!!!!
« Reply #15 on: June 11, 2012, 01:46:22 pm »
A colleague of mine used to go out at night, wearing a headlamp so he could see what he was doing, and pick the slugs off his plants and veg and cut them up with scissors.

I'll second frogs and toads - we have a resident toad in our poly-tunnel and don't seem to get many in there.


Possum

  • Joined Feb 2012
  • Somerset
Re: SLUG WARS!!!!
« Reply #16 on: June 11, 2012, 10:02:46 pm »
A cheap, chemical free deterrent is bran. Put a thick circle around vunerable plants and the slugs won't cross it.


My hens love to eat slugs, particularly Ros, the Rhode Rock. If the slug is too big to swallow in one go, she stabs it swiftly in half. She usually manages to eat both halves before the other hens realise what is happening. :chook:

Muc

  • Joined Nov 2008
  • Co Clare, Ireland
Re: SLUG WARS!!!!
« Reply #17 on: June 17, 2012, 09:55:36 am »
The water-pistol method: I have a water pistol (a spray-cleaning bottle) which I have filled with salty water. Every morning and evening, when doing my stroll around the garden, I spray any of the creatures I see. I also mist plants that are being attacked, even though there are no slugs visible. Brassicas are well able to tolerate some salt - I think they are descended from a coastal plant - and it has never done any harm to any other varieties that I can see.
 The good news is that after a couple of seasons of this treatment, I have no trouble at all with slugs and snails.
In the long-term I may have to deal with a salt build-up but the slug-free years will have been worth it.

tizaala

  • Joined Mar 2011
  • Dolau, Llandrindod Wells,Powys
Re: SLUG WARS!!!!
« Reply #18 on: June 17, 2012, 10:27:53 am »
get a few buckets of road salt and grit from the bins on the verges and spread this round your borders, you used to be able to get a water on slugit that stopped them breeding .

Muc

  • Joined Nov 2008
  • Co Clare, Ireland
Re: SLUG WARS!!!!
« Reply #19 on: June 17, 2012, 10:40:10 am »
But too much salt will kill off all vegetation.
The Romans, when they eventually defeated Carthage, dismantled the city stone by stone and spread salt on the site. They were probably planning on starting a lettuce patch.

Sylvia

  • Joined Aug 2009
Re: SLUG WARS!!!!
« Reply #20 on: June 17, 2012, 02:00:17 pm »
I'm sorry to say that the biggest killer of hedgehogs isn't cars but slug pellets :(  Also, never use slug pellets if you have cats, they can become addicted to them, with fatal results.
Scrounge some large plastic drinks bottles and cut rounds out of them, put them in place and plant your courgette or whatever in the middle. The slugs won't cross the jagged edge. Beer traps and sheeps wool also work. Ducks, though are the best of all, I think. :&>

suziequeue

  • Joined Feb 2010
  • Llanidloes; Powys
Re: SLUG WARS!!!!
« Reply #21 on: June 17, 2012, 04:22:27 pm »
Good idea sylvia.


I used to make beer traps out of old pop bottles but unfortunately other insects fall into them - especially brown beetles which are beneficial.


However, just having the jagged edge round the base is a great idea and a good way to use the arse end of the 2 litre pop bottles that I use the bodies of to bury in the polytunnel to deep water the tomatoes.



We do the best we can with the information we have

When we know better we do better

xillent

  • Joined Jan 2009
Re: SLUG WARS!!!!
« Reply #22 on: July 01, 2012, 04:25:37 pm »
The best thing we ever did was dig a small pond. We had a total slug festival site here when we moved in. I created a small pond the first year we were here and loads of frogs appeared. We still have some slugs but nothing on the scale we had. Frogs are great.

suziequeue

  • Joined Feb 2010
  • Llanidloes; Powys
Re: SLUG WARS!!!!
« Reply #23 on: July 01, 2012, 05:11:28 pm »
Yes - we had a largish pond dug last summer and there was loads of spawn in the spring.


The last of the tadpoles have just left and the grass is hopping with little 3/4 inch froglets.


Once we get some longish grass around the allotments they should be able to travel further afield and hopefully get through the holes in the rabbit-proof fencing to go to work on the veg patches.


 :D :fc:
We do the best we can with the information we have

When we know better we do better

 

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