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11:14 am
2nd Grader
New members
Sun 22-Nov-09
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Hello all,
I have been planting madly in the last few months - this is my first 'proper' season. Things are going well so far except for slugs eating my cabbage and cauliflower plants. In three nights I have picked off over 130 !
Does anyone know of some non-chemical ways to discourage them, or am I resigned to night-time raids - stumbling around with a torch ?
Thanks
Wil
12:06 pm
Moderators
Tue 22-Sep-09
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Hello Wil, welcome to the forum! 
I'm trying scrunched up eggshells at the moment but I don't hold out much hope since I found two baby snails sitting in the middle of a pile of shells, yesterday. Perhaps I'll but a stun gun...
I'll try that again!
12:12 pm
Sat 12-Aug-06
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Welcome, Wil. Beer traps are our favourite. Milk works well also. Use something like a margarine tub half buried so they find it easy to get in. We have to cover ours with upturned pots to prevent the dogs from drinking the contents. We prop the pots on one side with a stone or something underneath to allow the slugs to crawl in.
Somebody else on here suggested simply laying a few planks close by. Then turn them over every day and simply remove the slugs
Never knowingly underfed
3:58 pm
2nd Grader
New members
Sun 7-Feb-10
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Mr Grandmother used to place the half skins of grapefruits and orages downturned in order to trap them them. She would then feed them to the chickens. I have tried it and it sort of works. I am afraid the torch technique is the one that works best for me.
7:37 pm
Sat 12-Aug-06
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We feed ours to the chickens too, Jane.
I wish we could find a simple and environmentally friendly method that is guaranteed! Those guys can decimate a seedling crop overnight 
Never knowingly underfed
1:53 pm
Supreme Being
Mon 21-Sep-09
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Just a warning about feeding them to chickens - they have a limit . One year we had so many slugs and at first our chickens were avid eaters of them, after a while we would throw them in and they would wander over, look at them and then go back to something more interesting 
. Ended up picking them off and drowning them in buckets of water and then composting them
9:59 pm
Councillor
New members
Thu 7-Jan-10
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When they are particularly bad on the brassicas I go out during the day with a bucket of salt water, a glove on one hand, and dispose of the creatures into the bucket. 
The snails get picked off with the un-gloved hand and the slugs with the glove because they are too slimy to touch. A bit later in the year caterpillars get pulled off and added to the bucket too. Only small and large white caterpillars, all others are left alone to grow into butterflies or moths. The contents of the bucket are left overnight, and then added to the compost heap. It seems to work. 
blog: Devon Garden
10:11 pm
Councillor
Tue 22-Sep-09
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I'm afraid hand picking is the only really effective method, combine it with beer traps and orange skins and planting marigolds to distract them ( they love them and will go to them first and you can pick them off there). Nemotodes work really well, but it needs to be a bit warmer before you can use them. Make sure there is nothing near the plants that they can hide in/under during the daytime- piles of pots, stones etc. I do sympathise, one garden we had was a slug magnet, no-one in any of the gardens around us grew anything other than grass and old washing machines, on a June evening I could go out with my torch and catch over 2,000 before I stopped counting.The garden was only 12ftx40 , paved with raised beds.....eventually after several years and two applications of nemotodes, it became managable. Keep at it, morning and evening.
Kateuk makes things at http://www.etsy.com/shop/finkstuff and sometimes she does this too http://www54paintings.blogspot.com/ and also this http://finkstuff.weebly.com/
8:24 pm
Sat 12-Aug-06
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Oh goodness me, Kate.
2,000 in one evening? Incredible.
I guess it goes to show that the environment beyond tour own garden is a massive factor. I had never thought of that. How fast can these slugs crawl beneath the fence?
Barbara - thanks for that tip about a bucket of salt water, and also to Joanna about the consumption limits of chickens. Who ever would have thought that? 
Never knowingly underfed
8:30 pm
Supreme Being
Mon 21-Sep-09
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It was a very bad year. It was the year I had to turn the central heating on (well actually it was light the fire which powers the central heating as we ran on coal) in June, not because of the cold exactly, although it wasn't exactly piping hot either but because we had that much stuff to dry from the rain coming in through the front door. It was also the year a lot of my salt dough decorations all turned to mush because of the damp from drying all the towels. Slug heaven I think!
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