Grow Your Own Magazine

An idea I found in a Bob Flowerdew book, he uses a laundry basket, which I couldn't find so used a big bin in which I drilled holes in the bottom to drain, balanced on two bricks, this is standing in a big flower-pot base tray filled with water.
I half filled the bin with broken flower pots and other bits and tossed in lots of old cabbage leaves, grass, weeds etc, now I have a Stalag Slug, somewhere to lob every slug I find, they can eat my weeds and Ha, ha, they can't escape, they're surrounded by water. Have already collected over 50 of the damned things and they won't get away.
Can't bear killing them directly and was getting fed up with transporting them down the road to waste ground. It's a nice conversation piece (!) and so easy to pop in every slug you find, I don't quite know what will happen when it's heaving with slugs, perhaps some birds will look on it as a self service restaurant, I wait with interest.
Sue

I tried something similar in the garden with snails once, but they'd all gone the next morning. They all either all swam out, or the birds got them!

I just put them in the compost bin they seem to like it as it's always full of the criters.

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Digger-07

"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right" Henry Ford.

Brilliant idea Sue. Thank you for that. I can't kill them in cold blood either (but I do use the odd pellet when I have to) Usually I take them to the far corner of the garden and put them there. Now I can wait til I have a binful and take them far, far away.
Digger, I wouldn't put them on the compost heap. They will lay millions of eggs there and you will just be spreading them all round your garden. Better to put them in a Stalag as Sue suggests and take it far,far away to empty.

Slugs have now evolved..... with wings!!

Wherever you put them they always come back!.....Cue jaws music!...

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

That's a great idea Sue- and a treat for the birds on these cold mornings!

Thanks for the idea, may try it in the spring, but have been busy all Autum saving egg shells to put around the strawberries next spring.

I discovered that the white 'skin' inside the eggshell sort of stinks if you leave it on, but iff removed, you get a crisp non-smelly shell that can be crumbled nicely.
Hence have been dementedly standing at the sink peeling used eggshells and saving the bits in a big bag. It;s surprising how much they weigh! Hope they work come Spring.

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Regards, Jane
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? The creative adult is the child who has survived.
Ursula LeGuin
http://www.etribes.com/madderbat

Glad to see people are looking for alternatives to slug pellets.I believe they are directly responsible for the demise of song thushes in our gardens.Please don't use pellets they are indescriminate poisons.

While I don't agree with killing slugs, I never see any on my plot but the evidence of eaten leaves is a bit suspicious.

I have put beer traps down so at least they will be going out with a party! Otherwise I have heard of people putting the pellets in tubs, sunk into he ground so that the pellets do not come into contact with te soil, perhaps in guttering around the patch..like a moat, eh?