Grow Your Own Magazine

hi just come back from the plot,and the cabbges which are covered have been attacked by the dredded slug.
i was thinking about using slug pellets but are the suitiable to use near my cabbage plants ?.
i am trying not to use any chemicals
or are there any other alternatives out there
many thanks

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Interesting, the slug pellet debate. You can get organic ones now; which are supposed to be ok for wildlife eating the dead slugs, but I'm not convinced. We use other barrier methods when and where possible.

Interestingly, we have planted our brassicas this year through weed fabric; and our lottie neighbours [who are new to gardening] have planted theirs straight into the ground [they are using the old style row system - we divided ours up into beds]. Ours were planted a few days before theirs; ours are home grown and theirs were shop bought. We popped down there tonight and ALL theirs have been shredded by slugs, and ours are growing nicely...neither of us have not used ANY pellets at all [I suspect they might get some once they see the destruction]. The crops are just 4 feet away from each other.

There are loads of threads on slug pellets; and searching will give you a whole range of answers, including a load of alternatives.

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moon trial underway with onions, lettuce, tomatoes and calabrese.

I go out every night and slaughter every slug and snail I find as they certainly can cause tremendous damage. I would never use the blue slug pellets as they have caused carnage
amongst beneficial wildlife (toads, hedgehogs, birds etc that eat the poisoned slugs as well as sometimes eating the pellets).

I would only ever use pellets if I had netted off my crop so that birds and frogs couldn't get through the barrier. Quite hard to do! It's also worth mentioning that a slug can go quite a long way before it actually dies - and can be accessible to the birds then. I have used a stone to prop a slate up and put pellets under this - and sited it in the middle of the netted bed. However, I prefer to try to deter them other ways. Last year I bought some Slug Stoppa which is chalky and they won't cross. Unfortunately you need to renew it after rain. You can't have forgotten last year's summer? Perennial problem, this.

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I have found 2 dead hedgehogs on plots that use slug pellets.
Something to consider.

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I use nemaslug in the garden, but it would come expensive on an allotment, especially if you did it at the recommended 6 week intervals, but I do find it cuts the numbers down a lot. The nematodes don't affect anything other wildlife, although apparently they can cut down snail numbers too, so the advice is to keep it away from ponds.
It's worth shopping around, especially taking into consideration postage. Green Gardener does the small pack for £9.99, with no delivery charge.

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