The war on slugs

A nice celebratory meal for when hell freezes over.

 

". Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area."
Found this on Quora. I'm not entirely convinced but I do have a cucumber and some foil. I rarely get to the end before it goes soft, so I might give it a try

 

I would say you are right to be sceptical. Cucumbers are only slightly acidic and aluminium is pretty inert to most chemicals, caustic soda dissolves it, but this is why it's so useful in packaging and round the kitchen.

 

I suspect you need a pinch of caustic soda rather that a pinch of salt on Quora but I find the trolls amusing.

 

Nematodes do work, trouble is reducing the slug population just reduces the competition and you risk getting lots more snails. I find it's the small snails that do the most damage.

 

I am firmly convinced that this is a direct result of a season(now two seasons !) without an effective slug pellet. The ferrous phosphate substitute is not a slug killer, it is a 'control' ; it is sold as such. Even in commercial application, of commercial strength pellets, it is found to be ineffective. It is said the slugs (and snails ) 'go off to die': not found as corpses (at all). If this were true, surely one would find empty snail shells, which is not my experience.

 

Ferric phosphate is a stomach poison. The molluscs, stop feeding crawl away to die. If you find one under a pot say, cutting them open reveals the blue.
Although they say they are approved for organic use, they may not be as bio friendly as claimed. I have recent anecdotal evidence of pigeons eating the pellets and dying. Personally one or two fewer pigeons are not a problem, but I worry about wider damage to the food chain .

 

If it poisons slugs, I must surely also poison or at least make ill anything that eats the poisoned slug.

It’s also indiscriminate in that you will be killing the good slugs as well i.e. those that help get rid of dead plant material and those that eat other slugs

 

I don't think poisons are fair play. If you are going to kill something, do it neatly and cleanly, and actually feel bad about it. That's only right if you are depriving something of life, IMV.

 

I wish I’d had the chance to plant anything out @fairygirl absolutely everything was munched in the little plastic greenhouse before they got more than an inch high. The cucumbers had barely got a leaf before they got decimated!

What gets me is that I try to keep everything away from the edge and it’s a wire mesh shelf. They must tightrope walk across the wire to get to everything!!

 

They absnail

 

I bought some plants recently and received an A4 leaflet that included a garlic spray for slugs and snails. I’ve decided to give it a go by spraying a few experimental plants. This company mainly sell Hosta, so I’m guessing they have a good reason to want to keep them off. They say the solution when used needs repeating every 2 weeks. I also read (here likely) you need to do so after rain. They also say they still use slug pellets, but 80% less! This is their instructions:-

1L water

2 garlic bulbs smashed up in plastic bag

Boil for 2-3 minutes, then strain off liquid to get concentrated solution. They put 30ml of concentrate into 10L of water to make up a spray.

I’ll try to stick with it and get back with the result.

 

It would have to be reapplied far too often here for me @DiggersJo , and I now hate the smell of garlic so I can't use it.
They'll certainly use anything they can get onto and then move across to plants @latimer . I have to juggle seedlings/plants indoors on windowsills, so it's a case of succession sowing to get the best solution. I never use the gr'house at that time of year for seedlings unless they're absolutely of no interest to slugs and snails. S. Peas are ok usually, because they're tough enough and don't need masses of cold protection, but I also don't sow as early as many people do, and probably don't grow as many susceptible plants. The rudbeckias were all eaten as soon as they started going outside, and I didn't get round to doing more, which was annoying.
I moved a pot of rocket yesterday that's going into a more decorative pot. It had been sitting on the ground overnight, as I'd thought of planting it in the gap that was there. 5 slugs on the pot base, and another 7 on the ground below it.

 

I presume you take the crushed bulbs out of the plastic bag before boiling.
If this works how come the molluscs have shredded some of my garlic leaves again this year.