Slug Questionnaire

Hi,

I'm doing a garden-based product for my GCSE Product Design and I need to get people's opinions on certain things. I would be really grateful that if you had the time, you could answer this small questionnaire.


1. Have you ever had a slug problem in your garden?
a) Yes b) No

2. If yes, what products or methods have you tried out to try and stop slugs eating away at your plants? Have they worked?


3. If you have dealt with this problem, which methods did you find best and what products did you use?


4. How much would you be willing to pay for a product that stops slugs?
a) £0-5 b) £5-10 c) £10-15 d) £15-20 e) £20-25 f) £25-30

5. If this product was multipurpose and could save rainwater, be used as a garden light or other different things, would you be will to pay more? If so, by how much?

Thank you.

 

1. Have you ever had a slug problem in your garden?
a) Yes b) No

2. If yes, what products or methods have you tried out to try and stop slugs eating away at your plants?
If you have dealt with this problem, which methods did you find best and what products did you use?

Method Beer trap- a small container buried so it is flush with the ground. Pour in stale beer.
Have they worked?
Not really. You have to keep emptying out the drowned slugs and topping up the beer. Its pretty disgusting.

Method Egg shells/ grit/ sharp sand placed around the stems of plants.
Have they worked?
This is my preferred method- it worked and I dont have to replace the aggregate very often.

Method Nematodes watered into the soil
Have they worked?
Yep.

4. How much would you be willing to pay for a product that stops slugs?
a) £0-5 b) £5-10 c) £10-15 d) £15-20 e) £20-25 f) £25-30

5. If this product was multipurpose and could save rainwater, be used as a garden light or other different things, would you be will to pay more? If so, by how much?

A product that can deter slugs AND be used as a garden light would be great. :D
A garden solar light you can stake in the ground are fairly common. One which attracts snails and slugs with wheat and kills them using iron phosphate, would be organic and pet friendly. Alternately to make it really gimmicky, ditch the iron phosphate and keep the wheat smell. Then adapt your torch so its also a chicken feeder. Keeping chickens is increasingly popular in suburban gardens and chickens love snails and slugs!

Here is a homemade chicken feeder Ive just found on the internet. Its shape lends itself to a solar torch.



BTW- you're missing a trick by not explicitly making reference to organic options in your qualitative research. Its very important to some gardeners.

My product design project at school led me to engineering. So good luck with your project!

 

My answers are based on my last garden, my current one isn't ready yet:

1. Yes.
2. Slug pellets a long time ago, no they didn't work. Sure they killed many slugs, but once the pellets get rained away, the slugs promptly return en-masse.

3. Dealt with it by planting a greater range of plants, including some 'decoy' plants. A couple of rocks were tucked away in corners, enabling the birds to smash the snails. I piled a load of tree clippings down the bottom of the garden rather than taking them to the tip, which become home to Stephen (the hedgehog). Dont leave seedlings exposed outdoors at night. Occassionally move potted plants, because all sorts of things move in if you leave them in the same spot for too long.

4. Nil. No need. I believe if you make the garden attractive to a diverse range of species, they will balance themselves out. Slugs aren't a problem in a natural setting, because nature has balanced everything up. Pests tend to be a problem where there is a monoculture, allowing one or two species to thrive and get out of balance. If you do need to give nature a hand on the slug front, beer traps can be made easy enough from used yogurt pots and last night's beer dregs, but I've never had to make them because slugs haven't been a problem since I started to take the 'diverse' approach to planting.

 

Thanks for the replies. They've been very helpful.

 

1. Have you ever had a slug problem in your garden?
Not really

2. What products or methods have you tried out?
Egg shells, gravel, slug pellets

3. Which methods did you find best?
To be honest they all worked about the same

4. How much would you be willing to pay for a product that stops slugs?
a) £0-5 (being a bit of a skinflint!)

5. If this product was multipurpose and could save rainwater, be used as a garden light or other different things, would you be will to pay more? If so, by how much?
I'd be willing to pay a bit more, but it would really depend on what it did and how permanent it was.

A slug repellant which also acts as a garden light? This gives me visions of your (yet to be invented) device which lures slugs into a sort of hamster wheel dynamo and gets them to spin it to generate electricity. You must have come across some very worrying slugs in your garden! That said, you invent it and I for one would probably buy it.

 

Sounds rather like running a real pub.

 

1. Have you ever had a slug problem in your garden?
a) Yes

2. If yes, what products or methods have you tried out to try and stop slugs eating away at your plants? Have they worked?
copper tape
Slug pellets
Egg shells.
Going out every evening and taking them away..

3. If you have dealt with this problem, which methods did you find best and what products did you use?
Egg shells for it's friendliness tho they all work in there only way.


4. How much would you be willing to pay for a product that stops slugs?
a) £0-5 b) £5-10 c) £10-15 d) £15-20 e) £20-25 f) £25-30
A...(Not allot unless it 100% full-proof)

5. If this product was multi-purpose and could save rainwater, be used as a garden light or other different things, would you be willing to pay more? If so, by how much?
Yes I have a copper tape plant pot. £10-£20