Slugs and snails (but no puppy dog tails thank goodness!)

[Annpan]

bargain basics bitter from sainsburys seems to get slugs rushing to my pubs.

My own patented design is to sink a small yoghurt tub into the ground and put an empty marg tub on top... upside down... with little doors cut out of each side.
Stops the yoghurt tubs filling with water, which they did last year and the slugs like it being all dark in there.

My lettuce patch is covered with slug pubs- I call it slug-fest

[pouch]

My lettuce patch is covered with slug pubs- I call it slug-fest

nice festival, where all attendees drown :)

I used egg shells this year and it didn't work for my plants, the little sods ate all my chilli seedlings and basil seedlings

I have put plastic bottles with tops and bottoms cut off as collars round my tomato plants and that seems to be working

[Christine]

I couldn't get the cheap beer from Sainsburys to work - the slugs liked it but there doesn't seem to be enough alcohol in it to kill them.

They definitely prefer beer to lager, though.

[ocailleagh]

With slugpubs any yeast based liquid is meant to attract them, so pretty much anything alcoholic should work, theoretically. Also milk is meant to be good, though I've not tried that. I have found them less interested than usual in my slugpubs this year though, both wine and bitter have failed so far. A word of warning though, slugpubs do kill more than just slugs and snails. I've also found various beetles and ladybirds, earthworms and, last year, a baby frog. Which really distressed me, so now I only use them in the greenhouse where frogs are much less likely to be.

I've only had limited success with pop bottle cloches/collars. I have found slugs inside on several occasions (and my plants dead or severely munched). Climbing just doesn't seem to bother them, the crowds of slugs that find their way under my back door will attest to that, as I live in a first floor flat!

pouch

Annpan wrote:
My lettuce patch is covered with slug pubs- I call it slug-fest


nice festival, where all attendees drown :)

Thats no different to an average year at Glastonbury!

[RBG]

I've found that having a hedegehog friendly environment (no dog, lots of hiding places) has decimated the slug and snail population here. When I started gardening here 10 years ago I used to hand pick snails in damp weather and could collect a half litre of them in one go. These days I struggle to find any and what slugs I notice are very small. On the down side, there's been a bit of a hedgehog population explosion, and I have to keep evicting them from the chicken's trough :)

[ali newman]

Hello there,

The best way of controlling slugs and snails is to encourage thrushes and especially hedgehogs to your land. If your place is made hedgehog friendly, you can guarantee that your problem will disappear as if by magic. If you don't see any evidence of hedgehogs, try putting out a small plate of dog or cat food. This also encourages thrushes etc. Or contact your local wildlife rescue and ask if your place is suitable as a hedgehog release site.

Good Luck,

Ali Newman

[Ratty]

I would absolutely love to rescue a hedgehog but whilst I have an ancient lurcher (he chases NOTHING - we let our 4 rescued rabbits of varying sizes freerange in the back garden & he ignores them, oh and previously our pet rats have climbed over him - no response!) I fear that no hedgehog rescue would allow us to take one on

I set 3 slug pubs up last night with a can of murphys stout between them - today I've emptied 20 slugs out! I was sick of them eating their way through my entire lettuce, radish, coriander & parsley crops!

I try to encourage a variety of birds to the garden with lots of different feeders & bird baths but only currently get sparrows & pigeons.