These animals feed mainly at night
so if you are particularly bothered, you can go out and manually pick them off
those plants most under attack.
Rings of material that is uncomfortable
to cross such as sharp grit or broken egg shells or even human hair will
sometimes discourage them, I did see an experiment on this on a gardening programme
once and they happily crossed everything in their path. Maybe yours are different...
Plants in pots can be protected by greasing
the rim with Vaseline and salt.
An old remedy to deter snails and slugs is to collect as many as possible, morning
and evening. Tip them into a bucket of boiling water and let it stand
for a few days until the smell becomes fearsome, then strain off the liquid
and use it to sprinkle round vulnerable plants, such as the young growth of
delphiniums, lettuce and so on - but not on them. The remains of the slugs and
snails can also be scattered.
Sprinkle
slugs with salt to kill them (if you can stand the resulting agony).
Stab them with a sharpened stick.
A circle of coffee grounds around a plant will act as a deterrent,
it's the caffeine they don't like. Read the article in
New
Scientist
Trap them
using containers in the ground that have some beer (the slug-pub) in the
bottom, though you still have to get rid of them which is a problem if you don't
hate your neighbour. Empty grapefruit halves work as well.
Get some ducks, they seek and destroy - and lay eggs too.
Another way
to deal with your captured slugs and snails (I haven't tried it myself - the
wife won't let me) is to put them in a plastic Tupperware type container and
then put them in the freezer. This is probably the most humane way as
they just slow down and become torpid in the cold being cold blooded (yes they
do have blood of sorts). So they are effectively anaesthetised before being
frozen dead.
Plastic bottles.
Take a 1.5Ltr or 2Ltr clear plastic bottle and cut off the base with scissors.
Remove the stopper and place over a single plant. A simple but effective way
of protecting tender plants from slugs or the weather.
Electric fences are very effective. Two strips of metal tape, aluminium
or copper with a small gap of a few mm between them connected to a powerful
battery (old car battery or a couple of those big ones with the curly springs
on top). Arrange it so that the slug or snail has to cross the barrier to get
to your plants, as soon as they bridge the gap - Bingo! - doesn't kill them,
but it sure stops them. You may sometimes see copper rings available commercially
too to place around individual plants.
Go out to the garden in the late afternoon
and lay boards or pieces of cardboard on the bare soil around your plants. In
the morning turn the boards over and scrape the hiding slugs into a large yogurt
or cottage cheese container. Cover and place in your freezer for three hours.
When they're frozen stiff (and dead), dump them on your compost heap.
Another option is to go for biological control. Biological
control of a pest relies on introducing a predator species so "fighting nature
with nature", if chosen carefully, the predator will stop damage to your plants
without damaging the environment. Such biological controls are safe for the
user, children and pets. They will not harm other beneficial garden insects
and are biodegradable.
They do rely on the predator always having some food though, or they will
die out, so like other organic practices it is a question of maintaining a small
population of pests to allow the predators to be ready for them, in this case
though the balance is skewed away from the problem.
For slugs and snails, the biological control is a Nematode worm (Phasmarhabditis
hermaphrodita) sold as "Nemaslug". The nematodes
aggressively search out and attack slugs. They enter the slugs body through
a hole behind their heads (the pulmonary aperture that they breathe through
to be precise). Once inside they release a bacteria which stops the slug eating.
The nematodes then start to reproduce inside and within 7-10 days the slug is
dead. The nematodes continue to reproduce as the body breaks down. This new
population enters the soil and searches out new slugs to attack. This is a natural,
non-toxic product that is safe for both users and wildlife. The nematodes stay
active for 6 weeks so a single dose protects plants when they are emerging in
the spring and are most vulnerable.
Nematodes can only be used in late spring and summer
when the soil has warmed up (to above 5°C). On heavy, waterlogged clay soil,
the nematodes can find it difficult to move, so Nemaslug can be less effective
in these conditions.
Natural
Pest Control - Slugs 1 small pack
£14.99
Natural Pest Control - Slugs 1 large pack
£24.99
Icelandic poppy, Columbine, Forget-me-nots and Welsh Poppy are all unpalatable
to slugs.
Treatment
- Treatments abound for slugs and snails so there's no choice of options to try.
My own personal approach is to not grow anything that they like eating apart from
Delphiniums because I love Delphiniums. When the new shoots are emerging in the
spring I scatter mini slug pellets around them and stop when the leaves are large
enough to be less tasty to the slugs.
Centuries
ago people believed in spontaneous generation. Meat spontaneously
turned into flies if left, cheese into mould for instance. Well
I reckon that modern science has overlooked this theory as far
as slugs and snails are concerned.Soil in the presence of
plants spontaneously generates slugs and snails.