Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: rowlandwells on January 11, 2019, 10:45
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we seem to be getting an increase in slug damage quite noticeable when digging the crop at the end of the season maybe we could be leaving the crop to long in the ground before lifting I've found this slug problem to be on both plots we plant although rotating each potato plot per season
I was thinking about putting slug pellets on the potato ground to control the slugs but I'm not sure when is the best time to put slug pellets on potato ground when platting or on top of the ground before ridging up the crop :unsure:
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I'm not sure which is best but leaving any pots in the ground later on will be slug-damaged so perhaps dig them up and store them in paper sacks in a shed.
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Some varieties get more slug damage than others, so changing variety helps.
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we grew Cara last year because red potato seems to be best on our ground better than white but I take your point may be worth changing to another variety
I made a frost free box that holds about 5 cwt overwinter and they keep well its just the slug damage we need to overcome anyway thanks for your replies
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Many of the slugs that cause potato damage are underground slugs, so putting slug pellets on the surface would have only limited effect. I have heard of people putting them in the ground at planting time (or earthing up?), but don't know how effective this would actually be as I assume the pellet would disintegrate quite quickly.
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I have found that planting spuds in bags rather than direct in the ground seems to reduce the number of slugs. Perhaps not a solution for a large main crop but useful for first and second earlies. I also find that earlies minimise chance of blight.
Cheers HH