Grow Your Own Magazine

OK. I've had it wiht snail and slugs. Come on people theres nearly as many of us here as there are snails/slugs in my garden so I thought we should put our collective migthy intelligences and varying amounts of experience together and beat them.
I figure while the weather is favoring them this much now's the time to run evil or not so evil experiments on them.

So there's 2 approaches.

1. Kill them

2. Deter them.

I personally prefer the idea of keeping them at bay if that's at all possible. Ideally then they'd go and eat the weeds instead.
I'm not fond of using non organic solutions at all, I don't like to be defeated that easily

So what I'd love to hear is what people have used sucessfully or not to deal with the slug/snail problem.

Things I've heard of for killing them:

Salt (yeeeuk)
Slug Pub (beer in a jar)
Nematodes
Predator Snails
Other Predators (Birds, Hedgehogs etc)
Chemicals

Things for keeping them off plants:

Copper Rings
Copper Matting
Crushed Oyster Shell
Crushed Egg Shell
Coffee Grinds
Mulch
Garlic sprays.
Seaweed (placed around plant stem without contact with plant)

I'm putting together a survey so we can compile our collective knowledge and deal with them so please if I've missed something on the list above do tell me so I can put it on the survey.

Cheers

Angie

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Newbie gardener in Cumbria.
Just started my own website on gardening:

http://angie.weblobe.net/Gardening/

>>Click<<

Geo..

OMG how much damage could they do.... it seems they eat veg too!

__________________
Newbie gardener in Cumbria.
Just started my own website on gardening:

http://angie.weblobe.net/Gardening/

Try collecting them at night and relocating them.

Blue pellets seem to attract slugs better than snails. When I find snails I give them flying lessons (over the wall into the lane).

I've been collecting them as much as I can but our garden is surrounded by dry stone walls which they love to hide in so I can't find them all. Upturned plastic boxes have helped my cath a few and they have been having flying lessons too

Angie

__________________
Newbie gardener in Cumbria.
Just started my own website on gardening:

http://angie.weblobe.net/Gardening/

I use the hedgehog friendly blue pellets. Any snails I find get thrown into the neighbours garden (not as bad as it sounds - she doesn't grow veg and the birds are safe to come down and eat the critters there)

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

What are Blue Pellets, please?

Slug pellets - they kill the little so and so's. Most use a poison which will kill a hedgehog or bird that eats the dead snail but you can get 'Growing Success' ones which have a different poison and don't kill the eaters of the dead snails or slugs.

__________________
Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Apparently snails are homing animals, like pigeons. They come back over the fence! Try painting some and see if they return.
Also apparently, baby snails don't mature until there is a gap in the adult population...so if you take out some of the adults, there are hundreds of immature snails just waiting in the wings to take their places.
Sadly, slug pubs kill good bugs too, like beetles. I don't use them anymore.
It seems the only way forward this year is selective use of blue smarties...used sparingly and only on tiny plants (bigger ones should be tough enough to survive the odd bite)
They are a terrible scourge this year, aren't they? I've lost so many seedlings to the greedy little burgers

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

standing on them works.

Most birds and hedgehogs have enough sense to eat live slugs and snails, not dead ones! Therefore it is unlikely that the poison would actually harm the birds, hedgehogs and frogs.

Rusty Lady
Most of the allotment holders here use the "bad" slug pellets and you see the slugs on the path, sliming away like mad, and I have seen a blackbird eat one.

If you don't like killing them then you can feed them to any chickens or keep a slug prison as suggested by Bob Flowerdew, any not fed to the hens go in there, It's basically a big container stuck on bricks in a big plant saucer filled with water so they can't escape, heave any you find in there and then lob in weeds, outer cabbage leaves etc so they can eat the stuff you want them to eat. I've had an excavate in mine and the bottom layer is breaking down into compost quite nicely. I've put tiles and bits of brick in the very bottom so they live in there and foray into the veg heap piled on top.

After all this wet weather I'm finding loads, put 16 of them in clink today.
Sue

I'm using organic slug pellets for the existing ones and will be deploying 12 million nematodes for the first time tomorrow to keep them at bay in the future.

I just love the idea of the nematodes.

I'm so gutted, they have eaten very nearly everything i planted, swede, which were fairly small, my courgette, f- beans and peppers which were more than big enough to survive a bite and they have been annihilated!!!!!!!
i was so annoyed, after all the work i did to clear the ground and nurture the plants!!
i put down organic slug pellets which either didnt work or got washed away, and if they are thrown they return, as if in some evil revenge sequel!!!
is it true about the baby snails not maturing until adults have lessened? i find this incredible!
i also don't like to squash them ( having a buddhist mentality ) but it's VERY tempting when you find that your whole garden has been eaten.
I dont know what i could plant now and if i did maybe they would get gobbled too.
it's ironic that crops need rain to flourish but also the rain brings on their enemies!!
i was very upset my squash was eaten, and also my pepper plants which were huge, have been totally devoured.
i did also plant some cosmea and nighstock along the back wall, and the little blighters have stripped the stems on the 2 foot high plants, i have 1 cosmea flower which is very nice and i will put the pic on my blog.
i feel very defeated at the minute and will take pleasure in anything i have grown which survived, but i cant grow everything til its 2 foot high before planting it. i'm ranting so i better go!!
happy growing to you, and happy gobbling to slugs!!! ( i hope they choke ).

Thanks for that advice Rustylady. However, my dozy dog will have a good nose at anything lying in the garden (including all the cat's 'trophies' - and dog goes out of a morning before I get a chance to clear away dead mice etc) so I only use the regular pellets in my netted off brassica bed just to be sure.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

I am sorry to say that the biggest killer of our fast diminishing hedgehog is in fact slug pellets.They kill more than cars and predators put together.

Forgot to say that quite a few cats are also killed by slug pellets,some cats even going from garden to garden searching for them.The poisin accumulates in their liver,killing them slowly and painfully.

I use copper tape around my pots and it works great (as long as there are no overhanging leaves for the b*****s to use to breach the tape).

At first did nothing in the bed itself. After losing several sowings to slugs earlier in the year I resorted to Growing Success blue pellets but after reading this thread maybe they're not as friendly as i thought they were. I'm going to stop using them and look for something else. I did use slug pubs and never found anything else in there but couldnt keep up with the number of slugs in the garden and things still got badly eaten. I also collect of an evening and give them a flying contest when I can but again can't keep up with them. Might try raising my beds a little higher and using copper tape there as well since it works well on the pots.

Growing success do one type of pellet which is okay for use where birds etc might eat the slugs. On the rear of the packet it says that pets etc do not need to be excluded. They use a different poison to the other ones.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Yes, the pack of my tube of pellets says its safe for pets etc, but I'm not sure I believe them!? Am I turning cynical? Probably but better to be safe than sorry unless anyone with more experience of the pellets can reassure me? I feel as tho I've done a bad thing scattering them around my bed now Actually, sorry, maybe this should be on a different thread cos it isnt a vote is it

Hiya
So if we kill all the baby snails we can find, and leave the grown up ones, does that stop the population expanding?
I love the idea of a slug/snail prison! What a good idea! I dont mind crushing snails but I hate dealing with slugs - normally I cut them in half with my secateurs but then someone said that just empties all their eggs out! Gross...