SLUGS!!!

[Lochside Yogi]

I thought I had some healthy looking courgette and butternut squash plants to plant out a few weeks ago but the local slugs seem to like them more than anything else I don't use slug pellets because we grow organically and although putting beer out for them to drown in did catch a few, it didn't make much difference to the devastation, plus the beer was starting to cost more than the value of the potential crop I was trying to save! I have now ended up with half the plants I started with but have now found what seems to be a solution I wish I had known about at the beginning. Slugs apparently don't like sand so I have dug a small trench round each plant and filled it with sand. The trench is to stop the sand washing away when watering, and in true self-sufficient style the sand is from the local beach. Hope this continues to work because the alternative would have to be waiting up all night with a torch and a sledgehammer

[doofaloofa]

Head torch and scissors

Go out at night with head torch and cut every slug you find clean in half

They have a range og 40m so if you can do a 40m perrimeter around your veg plot all the better

They are territorial, so leave the bodies in situ and the smell of them will deter others from filling the vacume

THIS IS WAR!!!111

repeat for a few night, then once a fortnight

Next year you will have far less slug dammage and you may send me a pint of the beer you would have wasted in traps as a thank you

Total anialation

[doofaloofa]

[Skippy]

That's pretty much what I do although I tend to use a floor scraper, longer reach and saves too much bending down. To be honest I didn't know about the smell thing so thanks for that tip, every day a school day as they say.


Pete

[doofaloofa]

I am trying out a selective breeding program where by I leave Garden snails (Helix aspersa)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_snail

...but kill all the slugs. I have even brought snails in, as my house is quite new and had not yet been colonised

The plan is the snails, which are edible, will eventually out compete and displace the slugs. this means any damage done can be recouped later with less loss of nutrients

[doofaloofa]

[Lochside Yogi]

I like the thinking Doofaloofa, I wouldn't like to be a slug in your garden!