Talkback: Slugs - Talkback - gardenersworld.com

smokeyjack

24/11/2011 at 15:27

I put out saucers with bran dot them around the garden then at night rubber gloves on and go collecting they head towards the bran and its much easier to pick them up - then they go down the drain!!

Tea-Rose

24/11/2011 at 15:28

Hedgehogs and birds are also predators of slugs (I suppose the revolting things are useful for something!) I am torn between wanting to kill a slug as soon as I see it, and wanting the birds and hedgehogs to have it for their dinner. There's never a hungry hedgehog around when you want one!

osso

24/11/2011 at 15:28

i collect my slugs and snails and feed them to my chickens

Blueeyes

24/11/2011 at 15:28

I heard that growing french marigolds keeps slugs away so I gave it a go last summer and hey it worked !!! going too use it in my greenhouse again this year and they look pretty too slugs don't like the smell !!!

lesleypresley

24/11/2011 at 15:28

I have tried many ways to control slugs and snails. Used coffee grounds is the most successful. Just rinse out your coffee pot around the plant you want saved leaving the grounds close to the base.

jannyb

24/11/2011 at 15:28

I only use organic slug pellets , but have seen the jackdaws down in the veg beds hoovering them up I thought they were supposed to be distateful to birds! Does anyone know if it's likely to be harmful to them?

blackeyedsusan

24/11/2011 at 15:28

Used coffee grounds are supposed to work haven't tried them myself

joansgarden

24/11/2011 at 15:29

Found slugs on my greenhouse marigolds. Obviously mine dont have a great sense of smell. Waiting for nematodes to arrive before i plant anything else out.

tonka

24/11/2011 at 15:29

If i use nema slug will it hurt my chickens if they eat a slug that has made it into the chicken run before they die? I encourage wild life to do as good a job as possible but i do have a lot of slugs, i think they hide in both neighbours gardens which are full of places for slugs to hide and just come in mine on a night to eat.

ukcowgirl

24/11/2011 at 15:29

I use scissors!

feistymiss

24/11/2011 at 15:29

are slugs attracted to sweet things ? i put out a concoction of cooked rice which had milk on and it was raining, the slugs covered it !

perhapsme

24/11/2011 at 15:29

It's like they have sonar in those little teloscopic feelers! Once a plant leaves the ground, the alarm is raised and the troops roar into their, well, slow slimy onslaught. This is war folks and it's raging along our very soil! eeek!!

http://www.thepatchygardener.blogspot.com/

toby10

24/11/2011 at 15:29

i am 9 i love gardening

toby10

24/11/2011 at 15:29

sorry i am 10

carow1@sky.com

24/11/2011 at 15:29

My main problem is that I am trying to put food out for a hedgehog (which I thought was supposed to eat slugs!) but the slugs just colonise the dish each night. I have tried putting eggshells and 2 proprietary products that are SUPPOSED to keep slugs off but with no luck, and last night I even put the dish in the middle of a small pool of water, but they STILL got at it. I don't want to put pellets down as I don't want to poison the rest of the wildlife.

sybille

24/11/2011 at 15:29

You can read everywhere that you should collect the slugs and snails,
with a torch, with newspaper sheets, cabbage leaves...
BUT nobody tells me what to do with the collected animals.
I don't want to kill them, I don't have chicken or ducks, so what to do with them??????????????
I normally collect them and bring them to a park round the corner but I'm afraid that they come back....

Peat Ballan

09/12/2011 at 15:34

This nematode business seems to be a very expensive method of attempting to control molluscs. I find that it is just as good to go on slug and snail hunting expeditions every evening, gathering them up and giving them a last 'party' of old stale beer, and they go out fighting drunk, happy and lose ANY sense of direction for finding their way back to my allotment ! Failing this, I would get a badger and let it loose around the garden. The pet badger I had, was quite fat on the resulting feasting, but also dug up with scientific precision all the bean and pea seeds so geometrically placed ! You pays yer money and takes yer chances.

Nyakocat

10/02/2012 at 23:30

I watched a programme where a couple boiled a head of crushed garlic in a litre of water until it had reduced by at least half. Let it cool, sieve it, bottle it and keep the concentrate in the fridge. Use two cap fulls in 5 litres of water and spray onto your plants, all the way to the base. You can burn the plants if you use too much but this did work.

DWB

10/02/2012 at 23:57

I read somewhere that slugs live for around 5 years and just travel back if you chuck them over the fence (I have woodland beyond my fence!) so I go 'slug-hunting' at night with the old headtorch and trowel for halving and digging back into the ground as compost. I have noticed a reductionover the years in the population, but it is hard on my back as it is quite engrossing once you get going!

geoff fearn

03/03/2012 at 17:51

we have a dog so we have to be carefull I hear that you can bye some small worms that kill the thing with out harming any thing eles