Welcome to the Slug Hotel - FREE B&B!!

So can anyone advise me of how i might stop the little blighters eating my plants!!!
It seems ive been providing a free B&B for the little gits!!

Going out each evening to pick off slugs was not helping so the other day i bought some copper tape - i won't use slug pellets cos my rabbits run around the garden. As i started moving my pots around to start sticking the tape on, i realised that not only were they tucking in to my plants, they had also taken up residence under the pots - talk about an easy life!!!
Being new to gardening i did not realise that they would live under my pots during the daytime, but now i see that would have been the obvious place for them to go!
The copper tape seems to be helping but is not holding them off completely. Can anyone advise of another way - that actually works - of stopping them?
I have used salt in the past, would this just be the better option? :cnfs:

 

One that works????Now if I knew that I would a billionaire.


Although, I have noticed that the hostas I use to feed them with are not anywhere as bad this year-I put a bird feeder practically above it-my thinking is that the birds are coming for a nibble and scoffing the snails too. I might ( probably am) be wrong but it's there anyway.

 

Pellets or the method I now use orange peel which is often covered in the demons in the morning....then they go for a final swim in a bucket.

 

You can use organic pellets that are not harmful to wildlife or domestic pets. Look for ferramol on the label - I asked the same question a while back and a mate who keeps chickens AND has an oline garden centre recommended it. I go through buckets of the stuff in early Spring when all the perennials are reappearing after winter. Our chickens come out into the garden for a stroll (or escape!) and I wanted pellets that they wouldn't harm themselves with.

Other than that, coffee grounds poured around the most tempting plants. I also went out with a bucket of salt water at night and got them...or someone I know goes out with a pair of scissors and cuts them in half. I also go armed with neat salt, but watch out for damaging tender shoots...as I found out when I almost killed an emerging Helenium a couple of months ago.

I've found that as the plants get larger, they seem to leave them alone - it's the tender shoots they want. Or else I killed all of them (NOT!). I also found that if you "dissuade" them from one plant, they move onto another...grrrr....

 

I've become aware of the following......, I've not tried them but, I think that they work, well the BBC are willing to promote them! I hope that they are rabbit friendly!

http://www.guardianecostore.co.uk/guardian/product.aspx?topGroup=138&subCat=0&subGroup=3145 (not the exact one that they have shown on the BBC, but as close as I could find!)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8074615.stm

Hope this Helps!

 

a torch and a pair of scissors does the trick
or i pick them up on the end of a cane and drop them near the frogs around the pond who soon gobble them up

 

I think we all know that a combination attack is the only way to go.
I too go out of an evening and pick the bigger ones up but the little ones get bigger by eating your plants and, really, it's not practical to pick them all off. Each of my little gems seem to hide half a dozen weeny slugs. Ugh.
So I also use organic blue pellets where stuff is badly affected, or prior to laying mulch; beer traps irregularly, and coffee grounds (although that is mainly in an attempt to keep the local cats off). I haven't heard of orange peel, but if it works...
And my sister is testing out a trap she bought recently so we all live in hope !

O yeah; one tip, I can't remember where it came from, use "coppaslip", a copper based grease, around the stems of vulnerable plants - it does seem to work. I used it on my purple sprouting brocolli last season and it really seemed to prevent the slugs climbing up after I cleared the tops by hand. Still got munched by caterpillars of course.....

 

Beer. Just get some cheap Beer. Pour cheap Beer in a shallow saucer and put on the ground by the focused plants, the slugs will go into the saucer and drown. For some reason they Beer draws them.

 

Did anyone see it on the news today a pet labrador died through eating slug pellets containing metaldehyde (most of the blue ones contain this) there is a move to have pellets containing this banned the pets and wildlife casualties each year from these pellets is terrible in 2007 there were 52 dog deaths attributed to slug pellets.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ts-killed-lovely-labrador--clear-warning.html

 

10mm sharp Grit works well as a detterent

 

Well yes; any toxin may accumulate and have an affect further up the food chain. Or if you have pets liable to hoover up the pellets then you should be cautious. But where slugs and snails are a major problem the balance of natural predators is already skewed. And although all journalists will chase a good story, the Daily Wail has considerable previous for invented or exagerated "facts" to get a few sales.
52 dog deaths are unfortunate.
How many died on the roads ? Ban cars!

 

Mchumph said,

 

As we are using 'spare' land at our Local Pub for our Allotment, there's no shortage of ulage, we have set-up a few 'Slug Pubs' from the drip trays. They seem to prefer Real Ale rather than the 'Chemical stuff' & Lager

 

Have you tried cracked egg shells around your plants? They don't like the rough surface so they slither away :D.

The slugs have had my runner beans this year and they were slithering their way toward my brocolli seedlings...very angry indeed.

 

my birdfeeder combined with attracting my local hedgehog seems to have worked for me! Slug heaven last year, very few slugs this year. I had used pelets at the start of the year but actually, the nature method seems far far better!