Slugs slugs slugs !!!!

[Millymollymandy]

I've heard it's bad in the UK right now for slugs. Hasn't it dried out there though? Or is it still raining?

Something ate my lettuce and beetroot seedlings, which I assumed was slugs for the first time ever here, as the soil stayed moist for so long. Now it's all dried out here what was left was fine and growing, then half decimated again overnight. I think it may be sparrows, but I've put plastic cloches over what is left of my young lettuce so I can see what happens. Slugs can still get in but birds can't!

Whatever it is, I can sympathise as it's bad enough when you have drought and have to keep watering all the time, but if you've got nothing growing whatsoever because something keeps eating it, then you must truly lose the will to keep going on.

[gregorach]

Well, it's not been raining nearly as much the last couple of weeks, but it hasn't exactly been dry either, and the slug and snail population is now so vast that I expect they'll be taking over the world shortly...

[citizentwiglet]

I'm not imagining it / over exaggerating it, am I? This year has really been horrendous for them. My mother has forty odd years gardening experience, and even she says that she cannot ever remember a year like it.

The worse culprits in our raised bed are these small, white buggers. I don't know if they are 'baby' slugs (I think they might be, as I unearthed a big cluster of 20 or 30 them whilst digging over the bed - my GOD did I enjoy despatching that lot), or whether they are a particular kind of slug, but for wee things they can't half chomp.

[gregorach]

Everyone I've talked to says it's the worst year in living memory - and I know some guys with pretty long memories. It's so bad that Charlie Brooker (who, to my knowledge, has never commented at all on anything even vaguely garden-related before) used the phrase "Planet of the Snails" in one of his recent columns...

[Green Aura]

Snails are our biggest problem. We've seriously discussed eating them. Unfortunately we don't have a receptacle big enough to keep them in for purging.

Any suggestions?

[boboff]

Do you have a Bath?

I have used slug pellets to protect the nice flowers I grow from seed, they just adore Lupins, and have no other choice, but I don't like doing it.

The Grass when strimmed is awash with the blighters, if you go back after cutting you can stand on a few! I am lucky really in that the don't eat soft fruit much, and only munch the leave of the Rhubarb, my only Courgette is the one plated and mulched with woodchip, the ones on soil the slugs got. They have even taken to coming in the house off the soles of shoes too!

[citizentwiglet]

I picked a slug out of my three year old's hair. *boaks*

[Davie Crockett]

I've found that scarifying my lawn once a year has made a dramatic reduction in slug and snail numbers, I guess it disrupts the egg cycle in grass thatch and opens the grass to bird predators. I can honestly count on two hands the number of snails/slugs removed from the flower beds this year.

@*%"dy Pigeons are another matter!

[citizentwiglet]

I'm thinking about training my slug hordes to attack the damn pigeons.

[wulf]

Don't let your grass get too long, especially round your valuable beds; that seems to create a safe haven for the slimy blighters.

Wulf

[old tree man]

I think i'm getting to these buggers another sixty tonight and no damage to my seedling !!!!! die ....die .....die you slimey buggers

[yvette]

Much encouraged to hear that there are things I can re-plant - thanks for all suggestions. Onwards and upwards.