slugs in the garden

Find a hedgehog family!

some beer traps worked for me.. just some cans with a little beer in the bottom bury them up to the lid in the ground and the little blighters will crawl inside .

Thanks beer cans sound good would I need to put them the whole way round ?

Go out at dusk with a pair of large, sharp scissors and with the vorpel blades go snicker snack!

Encourage frogs and hedgehogs.

Some people put crushed eggshells around vulnerable plants.

And beer traps, as tanith says, are good.

How do you get a hedge hog family lol

search with a torch when it is nearly dark. I can't quite manage the scissors, I sprinkle them with a little salt. then feel bad that I have given them a nasty death - but when you find 20plus on one precious plant it brings out a vicious streak.

Yes bags I have to agree. Harden the heart. Don't think about what miracles of nature these little land based molluscs are. And you have to keep at it, night after night. However a heart hardening thought is - what is one of their favourite foods? Their dead relatives. Never any dead slugs left by morning. [yuk]
They also eat dog poo. Now we really dont like them and can to that awful deed.

I have also resorted (in the case of dahlias) to scattering a wide band of nyjer seed around the tender shoots of my tender plant. Water well. The band of sprouting seedlings is even more delicious than dahlias. But you cant do that if you have a whole veg patch (and only feasible if you happen to have nyjer seed bought for the birds anyway)

Slugs don't like gravel or bark chips.

Or coffee grounds I'm told!
(By a very confiding slug!)

Not a slug in sight - under several feet of snow LOL

I don't like slugs either, but putting salt on them or cutting them in half is just disgusting and so cruel. Drown them in beer if you have to - I collect mine in a bucket with a lid- and some grass, veg waste, then drive them up to the nearest badger set- a quicker and more 'natural' death.

Thanks for all the tips the slugs better watch out I am going to get them teehehe

Years ago we used to go out at night and shoot them with an air pistol. Some of them would explode in a very satisfying way. Probably not one for the grand children though!

No animal deserves being treated like that, really. No animal chooses its way of life, it is totally imposed on them by birth and evolution. So get rid of them if you have to, but to it in the most humane way, please. No need for this barbarity, honest.

I agree, granjura. No way could I cut any insect or animal in half with a pair of scissors!

Last year the consumer organisation Which? found that organic slug pellets are just as good as non-organic ones, and they pose no threat to people, pets or wildlife. And, if my limited experience is anything to go by, no threat to slugs either. My slugs loved them so much they kept coming back for more.

Additition to my post: or mollusc, in case anyone's feeling picky!

I've no idea what they are but I've heard nemetodes are the answer. I think you can by them on mail order.

The late Bob Flowerdew once got into trouble with some Gardeners Question Time listeners for suggesting the use of scissors to solve the slug problem, but many people thought it was a quick and humane way to see them off. I just can't bring myself to do it.
The slithy toves are safe for now Bags!

Tried nematodes. Didn't work.

The best solution is lots of frogs who, for the squeamish, are no doubt very frogmane about their gobbling (hmm).

All above is from my Oxfordshire life. Here in Scotland the best solution has proved itself to be wildness. Don't have a problem with slugs.

Employ DGS, aged 2.75. He is fascinated by slugs and spent the whole of last summer picking them up in the garden and bringing them into the house to show people. They were then discretely flushed down the loo.

I don't know why any of you are worrying about it - most of the blighters will be in my garden.

grannyactivist, Bob Flowerdew is still alive......I think.