Slugs are already on the prowl..

Hi All

I've been a bit slow to find my gardening mojo this Spring but this afternoon, I discovered that slugs have been quicker off the mark than me. The beautiful soft new growth on my lupins has been severely munched by the molluscs already! So I had to sprinkle some pellets, I'm afraid. I don't like doing it and I use organic pellets (which I'm not altogether convinced about, to be honest) but you have to do something to defend your plants, don't you?

So, be warned - slugs are already out there in your garden, homing in on any new shoots that peep up through the soil. Time for the remedy of your choice!

 

I use Nematodes. They work well on the side of the garden that only has a path on the other side, but they still come through from next door.

Otherwise, an early morning (or when it gets warmer, evening) prowl with a hatpin secured to a bamboo stick and a bucket of salt water works well. That and digging over the soil to disturb the eggs. I also have a resident frog that I love

 

Flinty - I know the feeling. I sowed a load of lupins a few weeks ago. Because I needed the space indoors, 10 days ago I put the young seedlings in a home made cold frame - just bricks covered with a sheet of glass. I had a look today and 75% of them had been eaten by slugs. Grrrrrr....

 

I know what you mean Marley about cutting them in half!! I currently use a sharp trowel and lawn edging slabs to slice them. I must get some scissors!

 

Just remember not to use them to cut herbs for the kitchen afterwards!! :euw:

 

I understand that slugs appear to be the enemy, but perhaps, if one has to kill them, it should be done with a little respect for a living creature and perhaps not with delight.
Chris

 

I don't want to preach Marley, because I know you are a sensitive person, hence your motto signature, but this is what I believe.

All sentient creatures want to live and I think we should respect that. Even slugs are just doing what slugs do, they can't help it. We may not like it, or what they do to our plants, but just because we have the power to end their lives, I really feel it would be better for us as well as them, to do it with compassion and not delight.

PS: yes, I'm a Buddhist so the possibility of rebirth does influence my thinking, even when it comes to slugs. Who knows what we may have been in the past? Any one of us could come back as a slug - and probably woldn't welcome being snipped in two...

Yours, thoughtfully, Chris

 

I'd collect them and give them to the chickens, but the ungrateful madams turn their beaks up at them and walk away. Perhaps I need a couple of ducks...ever seen a duck crunching down snails, shell and all?

 

I get a little lost here. :cnfs:

I have a sister-in-law who's a vegan and a gardenaholic and she cannot understand why people kill animals for food but she will quite happily snip slugs in two with a scissors thus causing them appalling agony.

I've no problem eating meat because it's natural for humans to be meat eaters as well as vegetable eaters but I cannot condone killing for killing's sake. I'm NOT religious and I'm not callous e.g like a lion. And I'm not a Holy Joe.

Yours, totally confused. :cnfs:

 

When the slugs start getting sensitive towards my precious plants that have taken lots of care and time and money then I will stop dumping them in salty water.

 

What a coincidence - a piece about slugs on Countryfile, ITV on TV right now.