slug pellets - Page 3

@gardeningfanatic I thought salt water was very bad for plants? or are you spraying the plant pots?

I was on my plot today and found on the leaves of my fruit bushes small gray snails there was no dammage done to the leaves  i have picked them off ,but was wondering why would they be there in the first place

around the plants we have a ring of sand from the beech this obviously going to be salty,on another we have ordinary sand and a little salt added ,the trial is ongoing if it workswe will put the sand on the outside of our raised patches so the slugs dont climb into the beds as i said its ongoing but so far no damage we also have ordinary unprotected plants in the same beds 

@joslow.. the pots and the slughs etc themselves... not the plants sorry didnt make that clear..

but on our raised veg plot hubby made himself this year.. he painted the inside of the wood with some bitchamen (not sure on spelling) on inside of the wood and the tops to stop rot.. and the slugs dont like it.. he has not had one slug on his patch this year.. so that is idea for raised beds..

but i made up some of the lard and salt rub last night and also did some with vaseline and put that on my pots and the lard i rubbed until crumbs and put round the plants in the ground.. will let you know how it worked going to look now while i think about it...

though bare in mind that this was a messy job to do..

well... the lard one is a wash out.. got wash off and dispersed in the soil in beds also.. but the vaseline one is going strong and i have 3 half dead slugs at bottom of my pots with hostas in.. and 5 snails.. little blighters..  so it may have worked.. will check again tomorrow..

@ gardeningfantic thanks for clarifying about the salt water, I fear if I put lard in my garden I would attract rats may get some vaseline though.

Have less slugs and snails in back garden now we have a hedgehog on nightly patrol and have seen a frog last week, but they don't seem to travel to the front garden where the slugs and snails eat through anything they fancy and snails love to climb round my front door!  So I do resort to the minimum of organic slug pellets out in the front garden, but thanks for garlic wash recipe and will give that a try.

I wouldn't use slug pellets...For a few years we had a song thrush - we would see it picking the snails out of bushes and cracking them open ...and find the broken snail shells...I had a visiting hedgehog.... and a toad living under a paving stone...

Then one of my neighbours put blue pellets down (lots and lots of them..everywhere - his gravel had a blue tinge....)...no more song thrush, toad disappeared and so did hedgehog visits (whether they were poisoned or just there was no food left for them I don't know - although local hedgehog rescue man said you shouldn't use slug pellets!) 

If neighbour is still using them now he must be more restrained ...blue tinge has gone...

I deliberately kept an area of my garden overgrown and now I have hedgehogs again! (I've seen 3 foraging together - I think a mother and almost mature hoglets)... but the Song thrush hasn't come back ...nor has toad...

You raise an important point, Lusi83 - if someone does use metaldehyde pellets, they MUST use them according to the instructions. Your neighbour obviously used far, far too many, making the likelihood of poisoning things that you don't want to much higher.

I guess I have good reason for having very strong views on slug pellets, having lost one of my cats due to poisoning. The source? Next door's overuse of those blue slug pellets.

One of my current neighbours has used these to the point where there is a blue carpet right across his borders. I'm glad I don't have cats now, and hope that his doesn't meet the same fate as mine.

I have blackbirds, robins and other birds aplenty in my chemical-free garden and don't have a slug or snail problem. I just collect the occasional empty shell as I work in the garden.